


Until We Get There

by shriketrek



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drinking, Drunk Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Romance, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2017-12-30 16:37:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shriketrek/pseuds/shriketrek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard McCoy's life is about to get very complicated. Not only has his ex-wife left town out of the blue, leaving him to be a single parent to their daughter, Joanna, but he's also got a new patient named Jim who is incredibly attractive in addition to being very off-limits. Unbeknownst to Leonard, as Joanna starts kindergarten, he and Jim will be seeing a lot more of each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dr. Leonard McCoy has a problem.

The problem is named James Kirk, and is sitting on his exam table in a hospital gown and little else. This is the state most of his patients are in when he examines them, so it shouldn’t be anything special with James Kirk (“Call me Jim,” he said, which is the thing that prompted Leonard to look up from his file as he walked in and started this whole damn mess in the first place). But it is.

Jim is attractive. _Very_ attractive.

Leonard disapproves.

It’s not like he hasn’t had plenty of above-average patients before. Something’s different here.  Namely, Leonard is _attracted to_ Jim. And Jim knows it, if the smirk and the hooded gaze are any indication.

So Leonard, not known for his stellar bedside manner in the first place, is a touch grumpier than usual, and his face burns for the first five minutes or so as he asks the questions he asks all new patients and records the answers, deliberately not looking at Jim. He tries not to let his mind wander into dangerous territory when he asks, “Regular exercise?” and Jim hums a cheery affirmative. Nevertheless his brain whispers at him, _Wonder what he looks like underneath that gown?_

Eventually, he manages to pack all that away and finish the remainder of the physical as normal. Jim, too, abandons the smirk in favor of detached politeness, and by the time the whole thing is finished Leonard learns that Jim has just moved here from Iowa and lives just down the street from the hospital.

Leonard leaves Jim to put on his clothes, holds himself together as he shuts the door to the exam room behind him and walks down the hall. He steps into the small lounge and, finding it empty, lets out the breath he’s been holding, pressing his face into his hands.

“Christ Almighty,” he grunts. He hasn’t acted like that since he was an undergrad, shadowing an OB/GYN. Actually, scratch that—back then he was flustered more out of awkwardness than attraction. He’s _never_ been quite this level of unprofessional before. It’s embarrassing.

Still, he managed to contain himself. Won’t do any good to dwell on it, especially not since Jim’s a regular patient of his now. After a moment contemplating this, he mutters, “Lord, give me strength.” He’s going to need all the help he can get, after all.

\---- 

That evening, Jocelyn is scheduled to bring Joanna over for visitation. Leonard gets every other weekend and every other Wednesday night. Fairly generous, all things considered; of course, he wishes he could see his little girl more often but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“I need to talk to you,” Joss says tersely while Jo stands next to her in the doorway, taking off her tennis shoes.

“Alright,” Leonard says, then adds in his daughter’s direction, “Untie the laces first, sweetheart.” Her right shoe is already off, but she tugs on the laces of the left one until they unravel.

“Good girl. Why don’t you go turn on the TV?”

“Okay,” she chirps, skipping past him out of the entryway and into the living room. Seconds later, the TV comes to life and the sounds of some cartoon float in to the two adults standing by the front door.

“Leonard,” Jocelyn begins, hushed, “I—there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it—I’m leaving.”

He can’t say anything for a moment, struck dumb by icy cold panic. Dread sinks into his stomach. _She’s doing it, she’s taking Jo away from me,_ he thinks.

“Leaving,” he somehow manages to force out with an uncooperative tongue.

“Yes. I—I’m packing up Joanna’s room over the weekend and I’ll bring it over Sunday night. I should be out of town within a couple days after that.”

It doesn’t click right away because it’s so absurd a notion, to even _think—_ but he gets there eventually and _wait a minute, wait just a fucking second, Jocelyn is leaving._

Joss is leaving _Jo_.

“You’re leaving her?”

“Leonard—”

“You mean to tell me you’re gonna leave Joanna without her _mother_?”

“Well, if you don’t want to be _responsible_ for her full-time—” she spits, but Leonard, blindsided by a wave of rage, interrupts.

“Don’t you _dare_ make this about me!” He tries to keep his voice down but it’s hard, it’s very hard—his chest feels like it’s going to explode any second unless he screams, unless he hits something. He tucks his arms in against his chest to keep from lashing out at the wall and breaking his damn knuckles, though he half-thinks it’d feel good. “This is about you, _abandoning_ your daughter.”

She keeps her mouth sealed shut, steeling her jaw, glaring at him with tears in her eyes.

“Where the hell are you even _going_?”

“I don’t know for sure, I—I just—” She cuts herself off abruptly to thread fingers through her hair.

Something’s wrong, he sees now. He can’t tell exactly what—mid-life crisis or something serious, depression, maybe. His arms loosen and come down to his sides. Desperate to stop this, he stutters out, “Look, Jocelyn, is this—do you—do you need some kind of help?” He winces internally at that shitty, insensitive delivery—he’s a _doctor,_ for god’s sake, shouldn’t he be better at this kind of thing?

“ _Fuck_ you,” she snaps, and her hand comes up to shove at his chest. Caught off guard, Leonard stumbles back and his shoulder hits the wall.

“Look, it’s done, okay? I’ll take care of the legal stuff. She’s all yours now.”

She’s gone. She’s fucking gone.

He listens for any signs that Joanna heard something over the sound of the television, but there’s nothing. He feels winded and dizzy, still leaning heavily against the wall where Jocelyn pushed him.

Of course he doesn’t mind taking care of Joanna, being her father and guardian full-time—he _wants_ it, he _loves_ his daughter. But not like this. He never wanted Jocelyn to be gone from Jo’s life. She’s just a little girl and he’s going to have to ask her to give up everything she knows with no warning—her house, her room, her _mother_ , for Christ’s sake.

This is going to crush her heart. And when it does, he’s going to do his best to heal it. Leonard does _not_ , and _will_ not,begrudge Joanna any reaction she might have to all of this.

He can’t tell her tonight, he decides, advancing slowly into the living room where Jo is half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, absently biting her thumbnail. He sits next to her and pulls her into his arms, and she leans back on him without taking her eyes off of her cartoon.

Leonard buries his nose into his daughter’s hair, allowing himself just a moment of weakness, of drawing comfort from her instead of being the rock that provides it.

“Hey, sweet pea, feel like a movie night?”

Leonard microwaves popcorn (with extra butter, for once—she deserves a treat) while Jo looks through the collection of kids’ movies he’s slowly built up since the divorce and picks a couple out. When the DVD is in the player and the popcorn is set on the coffee table, Leonard, acting in a fit of nostalgia for his own childhood, does something he remembers his father doing from time to time—he rips a stick of gum in half and they pretend like it’s her ticket into the movie theater.

“Well, I do hope you enjoy your show, miss,” he says, holding it out to her with an exaggerated, swooping gesture.

She giggles as she takes it, affecting a Southern Belle accent to reply, “Thank you kindly, sir,” and he knows someday boys will fall in love with her just as he has, just as thoroughly as he falls in love with her every times he looks at her.

“Love you, darlin’ girl,” he says later, tucking her into bed with a kiss on the forehead.

“You too, Daddy,” she murmurs sleepily, a slow smile spreading across her face as he smoothes the covers down over her.

He heads out into the kitchen and goes immediately for the cupboard next to the fridge. On the top shelf sits a bottle of bourbon, half-full. It isn’t the first bottle of alcohol he’s bought since the divorce; he’s burned through what is probably a disgraceful amount, in fact, and he feels vaguely guilty, but mostly decides not to think too much on it.

He takes the bottle to the couch and sinks down into the cushions, letting out a heavy, drawn-out sigh as he goes. On top of this whole mess with Jocelyn, he had a _long_ and tiring shift at the hospital and he’s bone-weary.

He unscrews the bottle and takes a sip. It’s good bourbon, so it goes down smooth, but he winces anyway. _God_ , what a fucking disaster. This, he thinks, is the kind of shit that fucks people up for life. It’s unbearable, almost, the pressure that sinks onto his body at the thought—she could be okay, if only Leonard doesn’t screw things up even more. If only he plays everything exactly right from here on out. He can’t stand the thought of Joanna growing up to be—well—like him.

He sits there on the couch for a while, slugging back bourbon and alternating between muttering under his breath and maintaining a terse silence, ruminating over not only today’s events and what the future will hold, but also the past six sorry months since the divorce and back, further, past the separation, keeps going until he hits what he thinks was the beginning of it all. Finally, decently drunk and depressed, he passes out slumped back against the cushions with the bottle uncapped between his thighs.

Leonard wakes up hours later, and it’s still dark out. His mouth tastes disgusting and his eyes burn, and he’s exhausted as all shit, but as far as he can tell, he’s sober. He sets the bourbon on the coffee table, noting the small spot on his jeans just above his knee where it spilled a little, and stands, trying to stretch and roll and crack the aches out of his body.

The wall clock tells him he’s got a couple more hours to sleep before his little early bird comes in to wake him up, but he’s too miserable to fall into bed just yet. So he wanders to the bathroom, turns the shower on, and brushes his teeth in the beginnings of a cloud of steam. He climbs in and, after a quick, cursory wash, sits down on the floor of the tub, leaning over his bent knees while the water pounds, too hot, against his sore back.

There’s no pretending that this isn’t going to be hard, but now he’s got Joanna he can’t dwell on that, can’t keep going the way he’s been. A miserable bachelor more than half on his way to alcoholism, slowly working and grousing and drinking himself to death—Jo deserves better. He’ll give her better. He has to.

Before he finally climbs into bed, Leonard trudges out to the living room and grabs the bourbon off the coffee table. He turns it over in his hands a few times, contemplating it, a finally gives a frustrated huff of breath and stalks into the kitchen. He pours the rest of the bottle down the sink. The drain swallows it up quickly and he stands there for a few seconds after it’s gone, just watching the spot where it disappeared. Finally, moving slowly, he tosses the bottle in the trash and goes to bed.

\---- 

Leonard spends the entire following morning fretting internally about how and when to break the news to Joanna. It never feels like the right time, and he _knows_ that there is never a right time for this kind of thing and, on top of that, it’s never going to feel right if he wishes he didn’t have to do it in the first place—but still he keeps putting it off.

Finally, after lunch, he decides to suck it up and just get it done. As a doctor he’s well aware that, in many cases, it _is_ better to just rip off the Band-Aid all at once, so to speak, and so that’s what he’s going to do.

“Mama’s leaving?” she asks from her spot next to him on the couch, staring up at him with eyes shaped like her mother’s and colored in like his.

“Yeah, honey, she is.”

“When is she coming back?”

Leonard sighs, and his eyes shift away from her and roam the carpet as he searches for an answer.

“I don’t know, Jo-bear, and your mama doesn’t, either. She’s got something she has to do, and she just can’t take you with her.”

“Oh.”

He can tell looking at her that she doesn’t really understand and that it hurts, and he wishes so hard that he feels sick with it that he could fix this.

Her lip trembles and her face breaks, and moments later she is sobbing loudly the way kids do, the gut-wrenching way that comes from an overflow of pain beyond the emotional and mental capacity to deal. He has never been especially good at handling Jo’s tears—though he and Jocelyn resolved before she was even born that they weren’t going to spoil her, the first signs of sadness from his baby girl always had him aching to solve every problem, fix every hurt, make it all better, and Jocelyn had to continuously remind him— _you said it yourself, Len, she’s not sick, she’s just whining—she’ll stop in a minute, go back to sleep—Len, you told her she had to stay in her room for a half hour, you can’t let her out after ten minutes just because she’s crying._ Early on she would smile at him fondly to see him wrapped around their daughter’s finger so thoroughly, but after a while, she just seemed annoyed. But now, this—Jo presses her face into his side, wailing, and his arms come up around her—this would be a perfect time to comfort her, coddle her, make it all alright. It’s what she needs. But he can’t fix this, though his entire body is itching with the need to.

After a while, she pulls away from him and presses into the arm of the couch, her sobs still coming strong, and when he tries to lay a hand on her shoulder she jerks away with a frustrated cry. He _thinks_ , logically, that she isn’t angry or upset with him specifically, that it’s just a natural response for a little girl for anger to come out of extreme levels of sadness and hurt. It’ll subside. But he does have to tell himself that repeatedly as he gets up and busies himself preparing for when she calms down a little.

First, he takes her blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it over her shoulders. Then he takes _his_ blanket from its spot next to hers and adds it on top for good measure. Her blanket is just a smaller version of his; it was just some inconsequential purchase he made during med school for his apartment, but for Jo it’s always had sentimental value, her daddy’s blanket, and so they got her one of her own. After making sure she is adequately bundled, Leonard heads into the kitchen to get her a glass of water. He fills her favorite cup, the one with all the characters from that Disney Rapunzel movie she likes so much on it, and then grabs the box of tissues on the counter.

By the time he re-enters the living room her wails have subsided to soft whines and hitching breaths, so he sits next to her and sets his load on the coffee table.

“You feelin’ any better, honey bee?”

She shrugs, face still pressed against the arm of the couch. Leonard tsks softly and places his hands on her shoulders to guide her gently into a sitting position.

“Come on, we gotta get some water into you. You know your body’s made up of mostly water?”

Jo looks up at him, her puffy face the picture of quiet, puzzled concern, and shakes her head.

“Yep. And with all that cryin’, you probably don’t have too much left. Come on, drink up.”

Two-handed, she raises the cup to her mouth and takes a few hefty gulps. Leonard gently takes it from her and sets it down on the coffee table. He plucks a tissue out of the box, pinches the bridge of her nose with it, and says, “Blow.” When it sounds like her nose is mostly clear, he dabs her face with another, cleaner tissue and murmurs, “I think I know what’ll cheer you up; why don’t you go get your shoes on?”

Ten minutes later, sitting at a table out in the sun and licking melted strawberry ice cream off her arm, Joanna is still a little bit subdued—but Leonard thinks that maybe she could be okay.

 ----

 Two weeks into Leonard’s new life as a single parent, he gets an email reminding him about the first day of kindergarten.

“Oh, _hell_ ,” he mutters, scanning the email. Jocelyn was the one taking care of all this, and it’s not as if he _forgot_ that his recently five-year-old daughter was going to start school, it’s just—it slipped his mind.

 _Christ, she starts in about a week. How’d that happen?_ He runs through his schedule in his head and quickly realizes that this is his last day off until then.

“Hey, Jojo,” he calls, checking the time and shutting down his laptop. “Get your shoes on, we’re going shopping.”

It’s early afternoon and, though he made Jo get dressed after breakfast, he himself hasn’t yet bothered to shower or change. He trots to the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror. His hair is okay, he decides after a moment’s deliberation. He hasn’t shaved in a couple days and he’s got a decent stubble coating his jaw and chin and upper lip, but he’s not too worried about that. He doesn’t have anyone to impress. He takes a tentative sniff of his underarm and decides that a bit of deodorant wouldn’t be unwarranted, but he’s not totally rancid.

A couple minutes later, he finds himself decent for the public in a comfortable pair of dark blue jeans and a forest-green t-shirt. It’s a bit small—tight across the chest and in the arms—but the quality of the fabric is pretty nice and nothing is inappropriately exposed.

“Got your shoes on, Miss Jo?” he asks as he strides into the entryway. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing with the Velcro strap of her right shoe, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“I’ve been ready for like twenty minutes, Daddy.”

“Oh, is that right?” he asks loftily, raising an eyebrow.

“Yep. Ab-so-lutely.” She enunciates carefully and grins with pride when she’s done.

“Alright, then we’d better get going, huh? Come on, maybe I’ll let you drive.”

“ _Da-deee!_ ” she shrieks, giggling, as they step outside.

“No? Oh, alright then, I guess I’ll drive. Go get in the backseat, missy.”

After they’ve bought all her school supplies, they head over to a nearby department store to get her some new clothes. Leonard is a bit out of his depth. He’s crouching in a sea of pink, frilly, fabric, holding a dress up in front of his daughter to judge the size, when a voice behind him says, “Dr. McCoy?”

Caught off guard, he whips around, craning his neck to see Jim Kirk, his newest and, unfortunately, hottest patient, watching him with bright, blue eyes and an amused smile. Leonard nearly reaches up to smooth down his hair, wishing for a moment that he’d showered earlier, but quickly reminds himself that he _doesn’t have anyone to impress,_ damn it.

“Jim. Uh, hi.” Leonard stands, letting the dress hang in one hand by his side. Jim’s eyes rove over him once, quickly, but the hint of something deep and heady that’s there on his face disappears completely a second later and his gaze turns to Jo, who has come to stand next to her daddy.

“This is my daughter, Joanna.”

Jo smiles wide-eyed up at Jim as he bends to shake her little hand.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Joanna.”

“You too,” she tells him, and Leonard is floored to see his little spitfire of a girl so bashful. Jim’s charm is apparently infallible—that, or something in the McCoy blood is especially susceptible.

“You guys school shopping?”

Jo nods vigorously, eyes lighting up with anticipation of her first day. Leonard supplements her response: “Jo’s starting kindergarten next week.”

Jim’s face practically lights up at that—his mouth breaks into a wide grin that Leonard hesitates to think of as gorgeous, and his eyes crinkle up. “Yeah? Alright! Kindergarten’s awesome, you’ll have a great time. Well—I was just here to pick up some new clothes for work since I start my new job soon—maybe I’ll see the two of you around sometime. It was lovely to meet you, Joanna. Good to see you, Doctor.” The smile he sends Leonard can really only be described as devilish, and Leonard feels simultaneous urges to roll his eyes and blush furiously. He does neither, instead extending his own polite farewell and trying not to watch too closely as Jim walks away.

“Alright, baby bird, let’s go try some of this stuff on.”

Jo grins, making chirping noises and skipping alongside him as he guides her toward the fitting rooms by the hand. Warmth blooms in his chest and seeps out in a smile.

“How’d a grumpy old man like me manage to get the smartest, sweetest, prettiest girl in the world for a daughter, huh?”

“You’re not a grumpy old man, Daddy! You’re smart and sweet and pretty, too.”

Leonard lets out a surprised laugh and stifles the subsequent chuckles on the back on his hand. “Well, thank you, baby girl. Come on, let’s see if these fit so we can go home and have some dinner.”

Jo insists on trying everything on herself, so it takes a bit longer than he’d like, but eventually they head home with their spoils: three new dresses, a couple pairs of tights, some new underwear and socks, a few new pairs of jeans and some nicer pants, new gym shoes and a pair of Mary-Janes (she’ll outgrow them before the school year is out, he’s sure), and a whole slew of shirts—sweaters, t-shirts—some with ruffles, some with glitter and writing, some with cap sleeves. He isn’t sure what’s fashionable for five-year-olds so he pretty much went with whatever she picked out, as long as it wasn’t ridiculous or inappropriate. All in all, he feels winded but accomplished, though his wallet suffered a bit from the whole ordeal.

After he tucks Joanna in for the night, he sits up for a while with a medical journal, but the image of Jim giving him the once-over, his face a promise of good things to come, keeps popping up in Leonard’s mind, and it doesn’t take long for him to give up and call it a night.

\----

It’s the first day of kindergarten, and they’re running late. Leonard wanted to be the one to take Jo to school on her first day and knew he’d be pushing it to get to the hospital on time—he planned on getting her there a little early, but at this rate they’ll be lucky if they get to Oakwood Elementary before the bell rings.

Leonard shoves a piece of toast in his mouth for safekeeping, hefts Joanna up onto his hip, and barrels out the door, barely remembering to lock it behind him.

“You excited for your first day, honey?” he asks, failing completely to keep the frantic edge out of his voice, as they drive to school.

“Mhm,” she hums, kicking her feet as she looks out the window at the sky. The backpack she picked out is sitting on her lap and she’s wrapped her arms around it; Leonard remembers how she fawned over it in the store, admiring the bright blue color and the white polka dots. It’s amazing to him still how happy such little things make her.

They pull up to the school and there are still parents and kids milling around outside. Leonard parks the car and glances in the rearview mirror at his daughter, whose calm demeanor has given way to slightly hunched shoulders and a pursed-lipped frown.

“Hey, come on now, little girl. Let’s go find your classroom.”

He walks a little too quick for her and she has to skip to catch up, gripping his hand tight. “Sorry, honey,” he mutters, slowing down—it’s just he _hates_ being late for work. He’s not going to get fired or anything, he’s well-established at the hospital, but it grates on his sense of professionalism. Plus, he’s got a pretty high-stakes job; he’s responsible for the well-being and the lives of his patients, and it doesn’t sit right with him not to take that seriously.

As they step inside he remembers the folded-up slip of paper in his pocket that tells him Jo’s teacher’s name. He hasn’t looked at it yet—he’s been a little overwhelmed, sue him. He pulls it out one-handed and attempts to unfold it, all the while seeking out someone in the mass of people who looks like someone who knows what’s going on.

“Excuse me,” he ends up saying to a woman standing outside her classroom like a lighthouse as students stream past her.

“Hi,” she says brightly, snatching the paper out of his hand. She unfolds it deftly, scans it, and hands it back to him in the time it takes to process the fact that she’s taken it in the first place.

“You’re going to be right down this hallway, last door on the right.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Leonard tries not to scowl and heads off in that direction with Jo in tow. Leonard, who is not paying attention, very nearly runs headlong into someone just outside the room as he’s trying to tuck the paper back into his pocket.

“So sorry,” he starts, but then his eyes light on the person he’s run into and _son of a bitch._

“Jim!” Joanna cries, her nerves evaporated completely and replaced by delight.

“Hey there, Joanna, good to see you again! Though, I’m gonna have to ask you to call me Mr. Kirk from now on, okay?”

This is fucking surreal. Jim turns his head back up toward Leonard, grin splitting his face, and says, “Hi, Dr. McCoy. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Hello, Jim,” Leonard manages.

“Hey, Joanna, why don’t you head into the classroom and hang up your backpack? Everyone has their own spot, so just look for your name above the hook, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, and turns to look up at Leonard without releasing his hand.

“Alright, come here, baby girl, give me a kiss.” He hefts her up into his arms and she giggles as he plants a kiss on her cheek. “Have a good first day, honey. Your grandma will come pick you up after school.”

 He sets her down and she hurries off into the classroom, calling after her, “Bye, Daddy, I love you!”

Leonard watches her go, the normally stern line of his mouth softening into a smile, and when he looks up again Jim is watching him in an eerily similar way. He clears his throat.

“So—you never mentioned that you were a kindergarten teacher.”

“Yeah, well, a guy’s gotta have his fun, right?”

Leonard just raises an eyebrow.

Unfazed, Jim continues in the same buoyant tone. “Well, you look like you’ve got places to be,” he says, gesturing to Leonard’s scrubs, “and the bell’s going to ring any minute.”

Glancing around, Leonard notices that the crowd of kids is beginning to thin and there are only very few parents still hanging around. He looks back to Jim, allowing himself to look a little sheepish.

“Don’t you worry, Doctor, Joanna’s in good hands. We’re going to have a great year.”

Leonard sighs. “Right. Thanks, Jim. Bye.”

“See you, Dr. McCoy.”

Jesus, Leonard thinks as he holds out a hand in a wave and turns to walk down the hallway, Jim always has that look on his face like he’s got some filthy secret he’d really like to share. He wonders if that’s how Jim always is, or if Leonard’s just—special.

Either way, he doesn’t think he can take much more of that look directed at him without going crazy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Star Trek or anything related. Song title from Until We Get There by Lucius. This is my first story on AO3 and I'm not sure about ratings and tags yet, so please bear with me! I'll probably adjust tags and ratings a bit as time goes on. I can be found on tumblr under the same name.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally planned for all the chapters to be roughly the same length as the first, but for various reasons I decided to split up the chapters a bit differently, so they'll be shorter from here on in. Thanks for reading!

Jim, as it turns out, is oddly prone to illness for a kindergarten teacher, so Leonard sees more of him than he really expected to.

He’s not sure how to feel about that quite yet.

In the first couple of months alone, there’s the strep throat and the ear infection, and once, he has a terrible reaction to a medication Leonard administers. From then on, Leonard feels a lot less comfortable giving him anything at all, but there’s nothing for it—he just has to make sure he’s always got a syringe of epinephrine close by. Sometimes, he hears from Joanna that Mr. Kirk was out sick and they had a substitute.

“I’m admitting you,” he grumbles one day to a trembling, feverish Jim. “It’s a pretty severe flu and you’re dehydrated. We need to get some fluids in you.”

“Ohh, _what_?” Jim moans, eyes half-lidded, looking like he can barely keep himself sitting upright on the bed. “Come on, Doc, just give me some meds or something, I don’t want to have to call in for a sub tomorrow, too.”

“You are _not_ going in to that classroom to get all those kids sick, Jim,” Leonard says.

“Oh come on, that’s where I got sick in the first place. Ronnie came in with it the other day and puked in the trash can. They’re all exposed.” He seems to catch himself then and blinks sheepishly up at Leonard before glancing away quickly. “Uhh, sorry.”

“ _Not to mention_ ,” Leonard continues as if Jim hadn’t spoken at all, “you’re in no shape to do much of anything but lie in bed and get rid of bodily fluids. I don’t anticipate we’ll be keeping you in here past tomorrow, but you’re gonna probably have to call off on Friday, too, get some rest at home. Come on, now, let’s get you settled in a different room. Think you can walk?”

Sure enough, later that day he gets a call from the school that Joanna’s sick. He still has two hours left in his shift, so he calls his mother and asks her if she wouldn’t mind picking Jo up and taking care of her until he can get there.

When he tells Jim the news as he’s checking on him later, Jim’s sweaty face pulls into a frown. “Aww,” he says, eyes drifting closed, “poor thing.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got tomorrow off, so she’s gonna get all the dotin’ she deserves. And you’ll be in good hands with the nurses.”

“Mm,” Jim murmurs, and Leonard can tell he’s seconds from sleep. “Rather be in yours.” And then he’s out.

Face burning, Leonard decides to chalk that one up to the high fever and flees the room to get ready for the end of his shift.

 

\----

It’s just a couple of weeks later, almost four months since Jocelyn left, that Leonard finally feels this whole single-parent business catching up to him. It’s been a great help that his mother and sister, and sometimes Jocelyn’s parents, see to Joanna when he’s at work, but he feels like a shitty father having to be away from her so much. Not to mention, when he is spending time with Joanna, there’s a constant undercurrent of self-doubt that drives him practically insane by the time she’s tucked into bed each night. And the divorce still stings, and Jocelyn leaving Joanna sends shocks of anger and confusion and worry through him whenever he thinks about it. He hasn’t had more than a couple hours at a time for himself since Jocelyn left. His whole life has been thrown out of whack and he hasn’t been able to _really_ adjust.

In short, he’s going a little out of his mind. So when his mother, perhaps sensing her son’s distress (or impending breakdown, maybe), asks to take Jo for the weekend, he gladly obliges. That Friday night, he finds himself in the bar a couple blocks from his place, sipping morosely on a couple fingers of whiskey.

“Dr. McCoy!”

Oh, perfect. Jim Kirk. Just the man Leonard has been actively trying not to think about outside the hospital for months.

“Jim,” he says in acknowledgement, glancing over his shoulder to look at him as he, apparently, decides to sit down.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Jim says to the bartender, face lit up in a sort of calm, easy content. Leonard discreetly watches him for a few seconds, wondering what his secret is—how he makes everything seem so effortless. Whatever it is, it’s something Leonard could use, he thinks, taking a somewhat larger swig of his drink than necessary.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Jim says once he has his own drink in hand and has taken a first sip.

“Yeah, well, you’ve caught me on my one night out in months.”

“Yeah, you seem like you’d be a pretty busy guy.”

Leonard, taking a sip of his whiskey, makes a noise in affirmative and nods his head as he swallows. “You back to one-hundred percent yet, after your flu?”

Jim’s grin breaks wide open. Keeping his elbows bent, he swings his arms in a couple circles, careful to hold his glass still. “Absolutely. I know I bitched about it at the hospital, but I definitely would not have recovered so quickly without your help. So thanks.”

Leonard fights back a smile and says, “That’s my job.”

They make small talk for a while, and Leonard’s drink is almost gone when Jim turns to him, his face straight and eyes wide.

“Hey, can I ask you something—kinda personal?”

Leonard is certainly not drunk, not from his first drink, but apparently he’s loosened up just enough that he doesn’t shut this whole thing down immediately. “Sure,” he says after a moment.

“Okay, just—what—what’s the deal with—shit, I didn’t think through how to word this.” Self-consciously, he wiggles his glass in his hand, staring at the contents as they swish around. “It’s just—I never see Jo with anyone but you and her grandma and sometimes her aunt, and I was just wondering—shit, why am I asking you this, I’m so out of line.”

“You’re curious about Joanna’s mom?”

Jim watches him for a moment, looking for all the world like a puppy caught eating out of the garbage can. “Yeah. Sorry. Obviously you don’t have to answer that.”

Leonard sighs deeply, looking into his nearly-empty glass. He swigs the rest of it down and asks the bartender for another. “No, no, it’s okay. Jo’s mom is out of the picture. Newly out of the picture, in fact.” The bartender sets his drink down in front of him and he nods gratefully, taking another sip. Jim just waits for him to continue.

“Jocelyn and I divorced—let’s see—it was final in February. I got visitation, every other weekend kind of a thing. And then one day, out of the blue, she drops Joanna off at my place for visitation and says she’s leaving, and I’ve got full custody.”

Jim sucks in a gasp, his eyebrows jumping up into his forehead, and lets out a low whistle. “When was that?”

“Just back in August.”

“Wow.”

“Yep. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled that I get my little girl full-time. Just—wish it didn’t happen like that.”

“Sorry, man.” Jim pauses, eyes fixed on some point past the bar, and says, “I guess that explains some things.”

Leonard’s head whips around toward him so fast his neck twinges. “’Some things’ like what? She doin’ okay?” After a second’s thought, he adds, “Is she causing any trouble?”

“No, no, no, nothing like that. Jo’s great to have in class.” Something seems to occur to him then, and he amends his statement. “Well, okay, yeah, she does get in trouble sometimes, but not on purpose or anything, not like she’s acting out—just like she’s naturally a bit of a handful.”

Leonard scoffs and replies in an exaggerated tone, “A handful? Not my Hurricane Jo.”

Jim starts to laugh in the middle of a sip, so he sits there and chuckles for a few seconds with whiskey in his mouth and the back of his hand pressed to his lips. Leonard laughs along with him under his breath.

When Jim calms down, he swallows, wincing at the burn of the alcohol stinging the inside of his mouth, and continues: “Just, you know, some days she doesn’t seem like herself—gets quiet and sad. And she hasn’t said anything about her mom at all.”

“Oh good, the old ‘bottle-it-up’ coping technique. Daddy’s little girl.”

They sit in silence for a few moments before Leonard starts speaking again.

“I’m just afraid I’m not doin’ right by her.”

“Pfft. Come on. From what I can tell you’re doing a great job.”

“What do you mean?” Leonard asks, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“I just mean—y’know. She seems okay. Way better than most kids would be, I think. She talks about you sometimes and you’re like—her hero. Plus, from what I’ve seen of you two, which, admittedly, is not a lot, you’re really good with her. I can tell you love her. And,” he takes a deep breath, “you’re the one who stayed. That’s important, Leonard.”

“So we’re on a first-name basis, now?” Leonard grumbles, avoiding Jim’s eyes.

In a much more buoyant tone, Jim says, “Yeah! Come on, we’re drinking together and talking about our problems—well, _your_ problems. Obviously I can’t keep calling you ‘Doctor.’”

Leonard just raises his eyebrow in response.

Jim claps him on the back. “Come on, old man—”

“Thirty-five isn’t _old_ —”

“Compared to my positively youthful twenty-seven, it is,” Jim teases. “Come on, when you finish that one, I got the next round.”

After that, the conversation lightens up considerably and the two of them sit there for hours talking and laughing over drinks. The music is loud and the other patrons are rowdy, and Leonard is having _fun_. They switch to beer eventually, but Leonard is still _pretty_ wasted when Jim convinces him to sing along with the song blaring out of the speakers—“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” for some reason—and that’s just about the only thing that could ever get him to utter a note outside of his shower, especially a cheesy 80’s pop hit that he never liked in the first place.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay, wait, I got this,” he says later, before erupting into a fit of giggles. “Phlala— _phalanges_!”

“Yeaaaaah!” Jim shouts, throwing his arms up into the air. “You did it, you named all the bones in the human body!” He waves around his phone, which he’s been using to check Leonard’s progress, but suddenly freezes.

“ _Wait_ ,” he breathes. “I’ve got it. _Bones.”_

“What?”

“That’s what I’m gonna call you, I’m gonna call you Bones!”

“Ugh. Please don’t.”

“Nope. Too late, _Bones_.”

“Just a couple hours ago you were callin’ me ' _Dr. McCoy_.' What happened to that? Can we bring that back?”

“Not a chance,” Jim says, throwing back the rest of his beer and calling for another one as he smiles widely over at Leonard. “Doesn’t have nearly the same ring to it.”

Leonard’s stomach flips for the millionth time that night at the sight of Jim’s ridiculously pink lips pulling back and those practically perfect teeth. He scoffs and hides his face in a long swig of his drink.

When the crowd starts to thin, Leonard finds himself glancing around incredulously, wondering when the hell it got so late. They’ve still got a little while yet until closing, but he really hadn’t planned out being out all night.

“I think I better call it a night,” he tells Jim, checking the time on his phone and patting his pockets absentmindedly to make sure everything’s still there.

“Yeah, yeah, same.”

The bartender brings them their bills. Leonard fumbles around in his wallet for a second before handing the man his card. “I’ll just be in the bathroom,” he announces, and then hurries off to relieve the pressure of several drinks in his bladder.

When he comes back, he signs the receipt that’s sitting on the bar next to his phone. His hand doesn’t move quite as dexterously as he would like, but some approximation of his signature ends up on the line, so he doesn’t dwell on it.

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” Jim says, sounding stupidly cheerful for a man who’s been drinking into the wee hours of the morning. But, oddly, Leonard finds himself with his own pleasant buzz of happiness and he smiles at Jim, picking up his phone and shoving it in his back pocket.

As they walk toward the exit, Jim’s hand settles on Leonard’s back, fingers curving over his shoulder a bit. He can feel the warm weight of it through his jacket. It doesn’t bother him at all. Just a casual, friendly gesture.

They push through the doors to the outside. The air is crisp and it cools Leonard’s heated face and he’s so _content_. It’s a weird feeling for him; he feels it occasionally, in little moments, usually when he’s with Joanna, but it’s been a long time since it showed up with any consistency. He’s drunk and being stupid and he’s already berating himself half-heartedly for this thought, but in this moment he feels kind of hopeful that he could get that feeling back.

Just outside the bar, Jim and Leonard turn toward each other, and Jim’s hand moves a little to accommodate the movement, crossing his back and resting above his waist on the other side. Still a perfectly respectable place for it, and they’re both definitively intoxicated, so Leonard can’t really begrudge him a little extra touching.

Jim smiles at him—as always—a sleepy, closed-mouthed grin with squinting eyes that manages to be just as bright and genuine as ever. Leonard’s face has fallen into its own soft smile.

“You good to get home?” Jim asks.

“Yeah, I live real nearby. Just a couple blocks’ walk.”

“You’re pretty drunk—I mean we both are, but—want me to walk with you? I could call a cab on the way, don’t have to come in or anything.”

Leonard feels his skin prickling with the desire to close the distance between them, especially where he can sense the heat of Jim’s arm, curled around him, close but not yet in contact. It seems like it would be such a good idea—he’s in such a good mood, and it’s not like—it’s not like he doesn’t _want_ it.

It would be so easy to say _okay_ and let Jim walk him home. And he would try to keep a professional distance, but who’s to say he wouldn’t ask Jim to come inside for one last drink?

_Bad idea_ , his brain whispers to him.

“Bad idea,” he murmurs aloud, tilting his head in apology.

Jim nods, and his smile doesn’t break, doesn’t look any less genuine at all, really. “Alright. Have a safe walk home, Bones. I’ll see you around.” He gives Leonard’s back one final pat and starts to walk away, feet moving clumsily sideways so he can look back and wave as he goes.

Leonard waves back and turns around to head for home.

When he gets there, he tosses his things onto the counter, pulls off his jacket, and makes himself drink two glasses of water. He’ll still be feeling those drinks tomorrow, probably, but there’s no way he’s forcing down a third glass.

He crawls into bed and his mind turns to Jim, Jim’s hand on his back, the way that pleasant buzzing almost made Leonard give in to the substantial temptation of him. He falls asleep with the memory of Jim’s smile in his mind and only the faintest hint of apprehension.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features Spock, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, and a little Chapel (who I haven't gotten to in TOS yet, so I made up a personality based on things I've heard), plus (obviously) more Jim, Bones, Joanna, cute daddy-daughter dynamics, and a boatload of sexual tension. Let me know if the texting style isn't working in some way (if it's not clear enough who's sending them, for example).

When he wakes up, he feels mildly like shit and he’s slept most of the morning away. His phone is blinking on his nightstand, so he reaches out and manages to snag it by the cord of its charger. It falls off the nightstand before he can grab onto it, but he tugs on the cord until the phone is sat safely next to him on the bed. He turns on the screen and opens the one notification— _four text messages?_ His mother doesn’t text, so he knows everything must be going smoothly with Jo. Who in the hell texted him in the middle of the night?

Leonard is stunned to see a text thread with one “James T Kirk” laid out on the screen, beginning with a text that he _apparently_ sent to Jim, though he’s absolutely sure he did no such thing.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**1:16 A.M.**   
**Alskdhaksd**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**1:17 A.M.**   
**Hiii dr. Bones :) hope you dont mind i put mynumber in ur phone whilr yu were in the bathroom.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**1:17 A.M.**   
**I put you in my phone as dr. bones btw**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**1:33 A.M.**   
**Hey bones, just chekin to make sure u got home okay but i wont worry too mcuh if you dont respond cause its pretty late**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**2:02 A.M.**   
**Goodnight doctor :)**

Leonard groans and pulls himself out of bed to take a shower, vowing to worry about this new development later.

After he’s clean and dressed in a t-shirt and his most comfortable sweatpants, and after he’s made himself a nice, greasy breakfast, he stretches out on the couch with a cup of coffee and his phone.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:39 P.M.**   
**Thank you for being so concerned about my safety, Jim. I made it home alright, but now there’s this weirdo who won’t stop texting me.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:41 P.M.**   
**Haha, very funny. Good to know you made it home safe.**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:42 P.M.**   
**You got some real finesse with that phone keyboard when you’re drunk, by the way.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:43 P.M.**   
**Oh, god. Yeah. Sorry about that. It was a fun night though, right?**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:44 P.M.**   
**I suppose.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:46 P.M.**   
**Oh, you had a good time, don’t even pretend. Friends?**

Leonard looks at that last word for a long time, until his phone buzzes again and a new message pops up.

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:50 P.M.**   
**(1/2) I mean, we hung out last night and I gave you a nickname. We’re friends already, man, just thinking we should make it official. Plus I’m new in town and**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:50 P.M.**   
**(2/2) don’t have many friends yet.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:50 P.M.**   
**That’s not against any rules, right? For a doctor to be friends with a patient?**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:51 P.M.**   
**To be friends? No.**

Leonard sighs, rubs his thumb across the screen, and gives in.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:51 P.M.**   
**Alright then, we can be friends.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:52 P.M.**   
**Great! Some other friends and I are going out again this Friday, same place. Wanna come? It’ll be fun!**

_Christ, this kid is gonna be trouble,_ Leonard thinks.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:53 P.M.**   
**Yeah, okay, as long as I can get someone to take Joanna.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:54 P.M.**   
**Awesome, let me know whether or not that pans out! I think my friends would really like you.**

Leonard huffs and mutters, “Yeah, yeah,” under his breath, typing out a quick reply and setting his phone on the coffee table. He’s got the rest of the day to relax and there’s no way that’ll happen if he’s got Jim Kirk on the brain.

\----

Later, Leonard decides that he’d like to make a peach pie. He’s not accustomed to alone time anymore and it’s made him a bit antsy now that he’s mostly recovered from the night before. _And_ he’s feeling guilty; he spends so much time at work, unable to be there for Jo, that it feels very wrong to be without her when he’s got time off. So he’s going to ply her with peach pie in an effort to make himself feel better.

He’s at the store squeezing peaches when he remembers Jim’s invitation and decides to give his mother a call.

“Hi, Ma,” he says, tucking his phone into his shoulder as he opens a bag to put his peaches in. “No, everything’s fine, I’m still coming tomorrow to pick up Jo. Thanks for takin’ her this weekend. How’s she doing?”

He listens as she tells him about their shopping trip earlier that day and the picture Jo drew for him.

“I’ll remember to act surprised when she gives it to me,” he says, making a pleased sort of expression at the perfect texture of the fruit in his hand before slipping it into the bag. “Listen, would you mind taking her again next weekend? Not the whole weekend, just overnight on Friday? I could pick her up Saturday afternoon—well, because apparently I’ve made a friend—what? Ma, come on, don’t sound so surprised,” he says, looking around self-consciously as his face heats up. “Yeah, well, okay, thanks. Listen, Ma, I gotta go, I’m at the store. Oh—okay, yes, love you too. Say hi to Jo for me. Okay, bye.”

He heaves a put-upon sigh and shoves his phone back in his pocket. When he glances to his right, the teenage girl that’s trailing after her mother over by the blueberries is giggling at him. He scowls a little and stalks away to go check out.

\----

Leonard picks Joanna up from school on Monday and she sits in the back seat quietly— _unusually_ so. He’s worried for a minute that something’s wrong, but when he glances at her in the rearview mirror she’s smiling, so his concern turns to suspicion.

“How was school, sweetie?”

“It was good, Daddy,” she says mildly. She doesn’t offer anything else, so he settles in, uneasy but resigned, for the rest of the drive.

“Okay, baby girl, we’re home,” he says, turning off the car and unbuckling his seat belt. He hears her door open and shut, and as he’s stepping out into the driveway a couple seconds later she comes rushing at him, slamming into his legs.

He looks down at her in bewilderment as she squeezes his thighs in a hug.

“Um. What’s this all about, Joanna-bear?”

“At school today Mr. Kirk said that our parents are very, very important and they do a lot to take care of us and that we should remember to sometimes hug them and say thank you and I love you, and _then_ he said that if you only have one parent to take care of you, you should hug ‘em _twice_ as hard.”

Leonard clears his throat, feeling a rush of emotion too jumbled up to identify. “Oh. Is that right?”

“Mhm. Love you, Daddy!”

Leonard bends a little and takes hold of her under his arms, lifting her up to hold her against his hip. “Love you too, darlin’,” he says fondly, kissing her cheek. “Let’s get inside, it’s cold out here.”

Later, stretched out on the couch while Jo plays in her room, Leonard pulls out his phone.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**5:13 P.M.**   
**Interesting lesson today, Jim.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**5:16 P.M.**   
**Ohhh, yeah. Well, I think it’s an important thing for kids to learn. And timely, considering the woes you were telling me about the other night.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**5:16 P.M.**   
**Totally a coincidence though.**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**5:17 P.M.**   
**Uh huh.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**5:18 P.M.**   
**Hey, so can you make it on Friday?**

Leonard shakes his head and an amused smile quirks the corners of his mouth before he tamps it down.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**5:19 P.M.**   
**Yeah, I’ll be there.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**5:20 P.M.**   
**Awesome, really looking forward to it.**

Leonard looks at that text for several seconds longer than maybe he should before heaving a deep sigh, shoving his phone into his pocket and dragging himself off the couch to go make something or other for dinner. Jim was proving to be very, very hard for him to shake. Dangerous.

But, he thinks, convinces himself—he can handle it. He’s an adult. It’ll be fine.

He decides to ignore the little part of him that protests, tells him, _get out now, or you’ll do something you’ll regret._

He’ll be alright—he has to.

\----

Friday comes quicker than anticipated and Leonard steps into the bar feeling anxious. It’s been such a long time since he tried to make friends with anyone and, well, he’s not known for being the most loveable guy. Christine at work thinks it’s “adorable,” but she’s an outlier. She’s accustomed to him after being forced to be in his presence for many, many long shifts. Jim’s friends aren’t so restricted.

He resists his unfortunate natural urge to frown, scanning the bar with as neutral a face he can manage.

“Over here!” he hears Jim’s voice call, dim above the racket. Leonard spots him at a table by the far wall, half out of his seat, waving his arm over his head.

“Guys, this is Leonard McCoy. Leonard, this is Uhura—one of the other kindergarten teachers—and her boyfriend, my friend, Spock. Hikaru Sulu, fourth grade, and Pavel Chekov.”

Leonard lowers himself into the only empty seat at the table, the one right next to Jim, and lifts a hand in greeting.

“Here, man, I got you a beer when you texted me that you were on your way.”

“Thanks,” Leonard says, taking it and tipping it in Jim’s direction before taking his first drink.

“How do you two know each other?” Nyota asks, leaning forward and planting her elbows on the table. Next to her, Spock stays leaning back in his seat, his hand on the small of her back, but he also seems to be interested in the answer.

“I’m his doctor, actually.”

“Yeah, and I have his daughter in my class.”

Nyota brightens, her spine straightening. “Oh? Who’s your daughter?”

“Um… Joanna McCoy?”

“Ohhh,” she says, squinting in thought. “Oh, _yeah_ , she’s cute. She seems like a good kid.” Her eyes turn to Jim and she asks, “Is she?”

When Leonard looks over, Jim is grinning with a soft look in his eyes, like fondness.

“Yeah, she is. Smart, too. She and like, one other kid in the class are pretty much reading already.”

“Yeah, she’s gonna be smarter’n her old man pretty soon, I think,” Leonard says.

“Oh, come on, Bones, don’t sell yourself short. I think you’re at _least_ as smart as a third grader.”

“’Bones’?” Hikaru asks, taking a sip of his beer.

“Yeah!” Jim says, perking up in a way that reminds Leonard of a puppy about to get a treat, eager to share what he no doubt thinks of as the _genius_ behind Leonard’s new nickname. “We ran into each other here last week and _this_ guy named every bone in the human body _while_ totally hammered.”

Leonard blushes furiously and mumbles, “Didn’t think it was going to stick,” before taking a drink in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. He doesn’t bother trying to contradict “totally hammered,” though he insists to himself that he wasn’t _that_ drunk.

“Don’t worry, Leonard,” Nyota says. Her voice sounds gentle, but there’s tension in it and he guesses she’s mostly talking to Jim although her words are directed at him. “We’re all pretty familiar with Jim’s brand of bullshit by now.”

“Come on, you like me. You don’t have to admit it, I know,” Jim says to her, grinning, and the look she gives back leaves no doubt in Leonard’s mind that she really does.

Seems Jim has an odd way of getting under a person’s skin.

Over the course of the night, Leonard learns that Spock is a researcher and professor over at the university, in the biology department, which is impressive, and that, despite his lack of basically any outward expression of emotion, he and Nyota are madly in love.

He kind of feels for the poor woman.

Pavel is some kind of whiz-kid prodigy engineer or something, Leonard can’t really keep it straight, and he went to college with Nyota even though he’s four years younger. He and Hikaru are clearly best friends, though Leonard never caught how they know each other apart from that they both know Jim.

They’re all pretty interested in Leonard, asking him about himself and paying a lot of attention to him. They are quite clearly an established group of friends, and that includes the new-in-town Jim, the one who pleaded with him, insisted he was practically friendless. Yeah, well, that’s evidently not the case. Leonard has a strong suspicion that this whole thing was for his benefit, because obviously Jim is doing much better in the friend department than he is.

In spite of this, the whole thing is surprisingly—easy. Leonard, in fact, has a good time. Jim’s friends seem to genuinely like him and they’re all pretty likeable themselves, and a _lot_ easier to handle than Jim is (which, he’ll admit, may be due in part to the fact that he doesn’t want to jump into bed with any of them). Spock occasionally rubs him the wrong way, but he kind of likes how much of a smartass the guy is to Jim, if he’s honest.

And Jim is just lit up, energized by the presence of people he enjoys and the crowd and the music filtering in between the indistinguishable but overpowering noise of all the people talking around them. Leonard is glad he’s not seated across from Jim—sitting next to him, it’s a lot easier to avoid looking at him, which would almost certainly lead to staring.

Uhura and Spock leave a little after midnight. Pavel follows them out five minutes later, and it doesn’t take long for the rest of them to decide to call it a night. Hikaru heads into the bathroom and Jim and Leonard stay behind at the table to wait for him so the three of them can walk out together.

Leonard turns his head from where he’s been looking around the bar at the other patrons in mild interest, and Jim is watching him with a contemplative sort of look on his face.

“…What?”

“You’re a lot nicer to other people than you are to me.”

Ouch—yeah, that’s guilt. That’s a feeling Leonard is incredibly familiar with by this point in his life. He must be showing it on his face, because Jim jumps to clarify.

“Oh, no, no, I don’t—I’m not offended by you, Bones. Don’t worry about it. You just, you have all these different sides to you. Like, sometimes you’re the stern Dr. Bones, and sometimes you’re the smartass friend Bones, and sometimes you’re Daddy Bones—which is— _profoundly_ adorable. I, you know, I think all of ‘em are pretty awesome. I kind of like every time I find a new one.”

Leonard averts his eyes, looking down into his drink, and grumbles, “You must be pretty drunk.”

Jim just laughs, his eyes crinkling in the corners, squinting ‘til the blue is nearly gone. Leonard allows himself just a few seconds to admire his teeth.

Hikaru comes out of the bathroom then, and when they head out of the bar, Jim smiles and claps Leonard on the shoulder and looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t offer to walk Leonard home again.

\----

After that, things fall into a rhythm of sorts. Taking care of Joanna, taking her to school and cooking for her and playing with her dolls and listening to singing absently in the other room while he reads journals or relaxes on the couch—this becomes nicely routine. It’s no longer so overwhelming. When he can find the time, he hangs out with Jim and his friends, or just Jim. He wouldn’t call himself close with any of them at this point (except Jim, of course, but that’s just because Jim is one persistent bastard and he didn’t really have a choice in the matter), but they’re a good group and he likes them well enough.

There are still things he struggles with in the parenting department, because being a single parent means he’s going to be falling short in some area or another, but after that night in the bar with Jim, all those little failings don’t seem to matter so much. He’s at least _fairly_ adept by now at making sure she’s presentable, even though sometimes he doesn’t notice when her clothes don’t match very well or there’s a run in her tights. He’s usually pretty good at keeping up with her school—forms that need signing and parent-teacher conferences and all that. And she’s been practically obsessed with learning how to cook lately, which is something he can definitely handle; he lets her stir things and teaches her how to measure, but she’s too little yet for much of anything else.

One night soon after the new year, she asks for something that throws him for a loop.

“Daddy,” she begins, and he knows instantly from the sweet and gentle way that she says it that this is gonna be some kind of pain in the ass.

“Yes, Joanna?”

“Can you braid my hair for school tomorrow?”

“Can I do _what_?”

“Braid my hair for school tomorrow!” she chirps.

“Jo, honey, I barely know how to braid.”

Finally she drops the act and whines, “ _Daddy_ , Holly and Hannah’s mommies are gonna braid _their_ hair tomorrow.”

“Well, good thing I’m not Holly’s or Hannah’s mommy.”

Hand to God, she just stands there and frowns at him with her hands on her hips and one eyebrow shot up towards her hairline. He’s _got_ to stop making that face around her; it's clearly having a bad influence.

Leonard sighs and says, “Fine, ya little monster.”

Joanna’s face lights up but she can tell he’s not done talking yet, so she waits, clasping her hands in front of her and bouncing in place.

“But we’re gonna have to get up extra early, okay?"

The dam breaks, and she shouts something in agreement as she rushes toward him and launches herself into his chest in a hug.

“Thank you, Daddy!”

“Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately for you, that also means bedtime’s comin’ a little early, so come on, let’s get you in the bathtub.” He stands up and brings her with him, tucking her against his side as she wraps her limbs around him like a little octopus. She makes a disappointed noise but her discontent is half-hearted and short-lived, and she rests her head against his shoulder and hums a bouncing, ambling sort of song as he carries her.

The next morning, he sits her down on the island in the kitchen, facing away with her legs crossed in front of her.

“Now normally we don’t sit up on the counter, isn’t that right, Jo?” he asks sternly as he brushes her hair.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Alright, let’s see here. One braid or two?”

“One, please.”

“Good. Nice and easy.”

“Can you do a French braid?”

He raises his eyebrow at her though she’s facing the wrong way. “Joanna McCoy,” he says, “if you think I can learn how to do a French braid and whip it out in the next thirty minutes, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Okay."

“But maybe we can work on it for next week, huh?”

She smiles widely and he sighs, setting the brush down on the counter next to her. The back of a little girl’s head should not be so daunting, he thinks, and sets to work.

It’s—well, it’s certainly not perfect but at least the three sections of the braid are pretty much the same size. A couple strands got loose around her face, but it’s cuter that way, he thinks. Or, he hopes. Joanna is grinning non-stop on the way to school and she leans forward to kiss him on the cheek before she gets out of the car, so he feels like he’s done a pretty good job.

He’s sitting in the cafeteria with one of the sad salad-and-sandwich combos they sell when his phone vibrates in his pocket.

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:12 P.M.**   
**Nice job on Jo’s hair today. She’s really proud of it, she keeps bragging about you. You’re like Super Daddy.**

Leonard catches himself smiling and manages to convince himself it’s _only_ because of Joanna, but just barely.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:13 P.M.**   
**All in a day’s work.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:15 P.M.**   
**By the way, the kids were surprised that it was Jo’s daddy that braided her hair so I took the opportunity to teach them about gender roles. So thanks for that.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:15 P.M.**   
**P.S., why are you texting me? Shouldn’t you be saving lives?**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:17 P.M.**   
**Yeah, and you should be molding the minds of the next generation. I’m on lunch.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:18 P.M.**   
**Oh, what a coincidence. I’ll let you get back to that, I’ve got some art projects to hang on the wall before the kids get back.**

Later, Christine teases him about the girlfriend he was texting on his lunch break and he flushes deeply.

“No girlfriend, I promise,” he insists. It feels like a lie but he can’t pinpoint exactly why.

“Sure,” she says lightly, winking at him from over the counter of the nurses’ station as she hands him a file.

He grimaces at her. “Remind me why I put up with you, again?”

“Because I’m maddeningly beautiful and I’m the most competent nurse on this floor, that’s why.”

“Oh, right. Speaking of that, don’t you have dressings to change or meds to administer somewhere?”

Christine just smiles knowingly at him and sweeps off down the hallway as he opens the file and lifts it up to try and hide the infuriating, lingering blush that he can feel lighting up his face.

Jim is _not_ his girlfriend, he reassures himself, and he’s certainly not his boyfriend, either. With that in mind, he heads over to the exam room where his next patient awaits.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter counts as explicit sexual content so I'm changing the rating! Drinking, drunk sex, and the morning after.

It’s really not too long until Leonard decides it’s okay to let his guard down. Obviously he’s attracted to Jim and, unless he’s imagining things, Jim’s attracted to him, too, but there’s an understanding between the two of them that it can’t go any further. They’re adults, they can handle being friends. Leonard is absolutely positive he’s got it under control.

Leonard is a fucking idiot sometimes.

Everything comes to a head when, in March, he and Jim get off together on the couch in his living room.

Here’s how it happens:

Joanna’s grandmother is taking her on a little weekend trip, so Leonard is hanging out with Jim. They’re out at the bar with Spock and Pavel, but Pavel skips out after one drink. Spock takes a phone call at around eleven and heads outside to answer it. When he comes back in, he looks absently regretful.

“I apologize Jim, Leonard—Nyota is not feeling well and—”

Jim cuts him off by holding up a hand. “Dude, you go do what you gotta do, no need to apologize.” He changes the angle of his hand a bit, prompting, and Spock gives him a very stiff and unenthusiastic high-five.

Leonard, a little drunk, giggles into his beer at the sight.

“Tell Miss Uhura that we hope she feels better,” Jim, also a little drunk, says with exaggerated solemnity.

Spock nods and strides purposefully out of the bar, and Jim sighs. “The night’s still young, Bones, my friend. Let’s do some shots.”

They get wasted, more wasted than Leonard’s been since he was in undergrad, since the last time he got so drunk he puked all over the door to his neighbor’s dorm room and the floor just outside it, thinking it was his own room and trying to get the key into the lock. He’s not _puking-_ drunk this time but he’s a _long_ way past the usual, the three or four out of ten he gets when he’s with Jim.

At closing time they find that they are _not_ done drinking, thank you, and they make their unsteady way in the direction of Leonard’s place. Leonard is so distracted by everything—his mushy brain jumps from one thing to the next, fascinated by how different and new it all is, and how _funny_ (Jim, who is walking next to him laughing so hard no sound is coming out, seems to be in the same boat)—he’s so distracted that it doesn’t even occur to him that this is a bad idea.

They stop in at the liquor store around the corner and he somehow manages to act like a functioning human being long enough to buy a bottle of Jameson while Jim lingers behind, examining and poking at the things on the shelves and giggling to himself.

Leonard lets them into the house with Jim’s arm slung around his shoulder. He likes the smell of Jim’s cologne, he thinks.

“Nice place,” Jim slurs, looking around with wonderment not really befitting the tiny two-bedroom.

“Joss got the house. In—in the—I think her parents’ve got it now. I dunno. I’m jus’ rentin’ this place, ain’t got the kind of money for a house yet. But I figured, for—for Joanna. A house would be better’n an apartment.”

“ _Maaan,_ you’re doin’ good, Bones. I mean it. C’mon, that whiskey’s not gonna—not gonna drink itself!”

They slump onto the couch, not bothering to turn on any lights, and drink straight out of the bottle, passing it back and forth between them. They’re sitting close, leaned in toward each other to minimize the distance the booze has to travel. Jim is talking excitedly, his words hushed but clumsy, about the stars and Leonard is listening carefully, rolling a bit of whiskey around in his mouth and holding the bottle against his lower lip. Jim stretches out his fingers without slowing down in what is practically a reverent, if graceless, ode to space, and Leonard swallows and presses the bottle into his hands in response to the request.

Jim’s mouth is beautiful around the glass rim as he takes slow sips. His lips are so color-saturated, so deeply pink, and even slightly chapped they look soft as anything. Something starts burning low in Leonard’s abdomen as he watches Jim drink.

Jim meets his eyes and he lets the hand holding the bottle drift down until it’s sitting in his lap. He hasn’t resumed talking yet, he’s just looking at Leonard from just inches away, and Leonard is looking back.

When their lips first come into breathtaking contact, it feels like a dam breaking, like a huge pressure release, intense and intoxicating. Leonard honestly has no recollection of who initiated the kiss but his mind is racing with both excitement and trepidation and he presses forward a little. He is afraid, afraid of what this means but it’s far too late and he accepts the fear and lets the desire overwhelm it. He’s a little overeager, a little skittish, fisting his hands into Jim’s jacket and letting go a split second later. Jim’s hand curves around the back of his neck and the other one reaches blindly to put the whiskey on the coffee table, and his mouth never stops, languidly and gently sucking against Leonard’s lips—his tongue, hot and wet, sweeps and swirls and presses, and then he ducks his head to mouth against Leonard’s jaw and then his neck. The touch lights fires under Leonard’s skin—he hasn’t been touched like this in so _long_. Jim’s attentions aren’t particularly well-coordinated but they are focused and earnest and Leonard’s body is responding beautifully. He gasps when Jim’s tongue licks a thin and precise stripe up his jugular. 

Jim doesn’t spend too long there, unable, it seems, to leave Leonard’s mouth for long. His hands wander, though, traveling up his chest, over his shoulders and down his back. He feels Leonard’s abdomen, and then his hands settle at his waist, gripping with desperation.

They manage to press closer to each other, and at this new angle Leonard can feel Jim’s erection against him, in the crease where his leg meets his hip. His own achingly hard cock brushes against Jim’s thigh. He lets out a shuddering moan into Jim’s mouth. He has long since had his big bisexual freak-out, but he and Jocelyn met young, dated young, married young—he hasn’t had the chance to do this, to feel another man against him like this. It’s _incredible_.

“ _Bones,_ ” Jim breathes. His fingers tighten around Leonard’s biceps and pull, and Leonard finds himself leaning over him, straddling one of his thighs. Jim locks their lips together again instantly and rocks up, and Leonard’s hips respond before his brain can process the pleasure. His hands, seeking skin, work their way under Jim’s shirt and spread out against the firm, soft plane of his back.

They move against each other, and at first their broken rhythms don’t align, but then they manage to work it out and Leonard grinds slowly down just as Jim arches up. They pant against each other’s mouths now, too lost to really kiss, and Jim reaches down to fumble with the button of Leonard’s jeans. It takes a particularly long time, but finally the button pops open and Jim’s fingers trace along the skin revealed just above the waistband of Leonard’s underwear before dipping inside. He takes Leonard’s length in his hand, which is somehow searing warm even though it feels like they just came in from the chilly early-spring air, and eases it out into the open. Leonard rests his forehead against Jim’s and closes his eyes and thrusts, holding onto Jim’s shoulders for dear life. The rough slide of calloused fingers on him leaves him breathless and _so close_ to orgasm, and when Jim nuzzles his way around to bite gently down on Leonard’s earlobe—well, that does it. It’s thunderous, it feels like his body is being lit up from the inside and he’s _consumed._ It only lasts a few seconds but he comes down breathing like he’s run a marathon.

Jim wraps his arms around Leonard and pulls him into a deep kiss. His cock, still in his pants, comes to rest up against Leonard’s thigh. Leonard is still dazed but he tightens his hands in Jim’s shirt and kisses back, pressing even closer. Jim rolls and jerks his hips just a few times before all of his muscles tighten and his body jolts and he’s coming, breaking the kiss to moan and gasp into the open air.

The moment of focused clarity is over, and everything is strange and muddy and dizzy around him again. They stay as they are, with Leonard up on Jim’s lap and Jim’s hands resting in the small of Leonard’s back, heads hanging close together and chests heaving so hard they meet on every inhale, for a few long moments before Leonard lets his body list a bit to the side and pulls his leg back over Jim’s. He lies down on his back with his head up on the arm of the couch and watches Jim slump down towards him, not so much of his own volition but because of gravity and the weight of drunkenness. Jim manages to stay mostly upright, one cheek mashed into the back of the couch, and his face relaxes until Leonard thinks he’s probably asleep.

Intellectually, Leonard is aware that they fucked up, that _he_ fucked up, but at the moment, he’s just had the first orgasm he didn’t have to induce himself in a stupidly long time and he’s drunk as shit and about ready to pass out, and so he can’t really find it in himself to care.

\----

When he wakes up, it’s to the stabbing pain of a thin shaft of light entering his eyes through his lids. He grunts, jerking his head first one way and the other in an effort to dodge the light, and then cracks open his eyes.

“Sweet _Jesus_ ,” he murmurs with a mouth that tastes like roadkill and a voice that sounds like he’s gargled glass, pressing his fingers against his eyes to try and alleviate the absolutely incredible pain pounding away behind them. He pulls his hand away, blinks rapidly, and looks down to see Jim’s head nestled against his stomach.

“Fuck.”

Jim doesn’t stir.

Leonard manages to get out from under him without waking him up, which is _such_ a blessing in the face of discovering that his dick’s out of his pants and he’s got his own come on his stomach and clothes. He remembers that Jim brought him off with his hand and sure enough, when he shrugs out of his jacket there’s more on the back, where Jim clutched at him. Leonard grimaces when he checks and yes, Jim’s got semen dried on his hand, and there’s probably more on his stomach from when they pressed right up against each other. And then, of course, there’s the fact that he came in his pants. That’ll be uncomfortable.

Jim sighs and stretches out a little but doesn’t wake, and so Leonard throws a blanket over him and leaves _his patient_ and _his daughter’s kindergarten teacher_ to sleep while he heads into the bathroom to try to make himself feel a little more human.

He doesn’t feel up to standing under the spray of the shower for very long, so he washes himself sitting down and indulges in a few minutes of letting hot water pound against the back of his neck. He towels himself dry and sneaks across the hall, just in case Jim’s come around, to get some clothes on. He makes himself drink water, and after chugging one glass he has to sit and wait for his stomach to settle, so the second glass goes down slower. After he’s brushed that horrific taste out of his mouth, he figures it’s time to make a late breakfast.

Leonard puts on the coffee to brew while he gets the food ready. In one pan he cooks scrambled eggs, and he splits another between pork sausage links and pan-fried toast. He wishes he had some potatoes to fry up with some onions, but he doesn’t, and so this will have to do.

Jim wanders in as Leonard is stirring cheese into the half-cooked eggs, his hair and clothes rumpled. He doesn’t say a word, just looks at Leonard solemnly, his blue eyes wide, ashamed.

Leonard sighs, looking back to the eggs. “That glass of water’s for you,” he says, nodding over to the counter. “Drink that and go clean yourself up. You can use the shower if you want. Towels and washcloths are in the linen closet down the hall. Food should be ready by the time you’re done.”

“Thanks,” Jim says in reply, his voice just a croak. He moves slowly, scratching the back of his neck, and when he’s done with the water he disappears to the bathroom.

Leonard finishes cooking and sets everything out on the table before pouring two more glasses of water and two mugs of coffee. He thinks he remembers Jim telling him he likes it black, so he doesn’t bother getting out the sugar or the half-and-half. As an afterthought, he grabs a bottle of Tylenol from up in the cupboard, takes a couple, and sets it out next to the sausage. Then he sits down and waits.

Jim doesn’t take a terribly long time, but Leonard's been distracted by one thing or another since he woke up, and now that he's all clean and at least a little better hydrated, he can _think_.

Holy _shit_ , did they fuck up. He sees now how _mired_ in denial he was to even consider being friends with Jim. At this point he doesn’t think he has the ability to really cut Jim out of his life like he should, but now he knows, now he _knows_ that this thing between them isn’t just—it’s not something they can just ignore. What they did last night was the very thing he’s been fighting to avoid ever since he first laid eyes on Jim and he’s so mad at himself for letting it happen.

Jim comes back into the kitchen and sits down across from Leonard. He hasn’t showered but his face looks freshly washed and there’s no dried come on his hand anymore, so there’s that. “Looks good, Bones,” he says, brighter and calmer than before, but he refuses to look up at all. He scoops some of everything onto his plate, popping some Tylenol into his mouth with a grateful noise, and Leonard decides it can wait a bit.

Jim doesn’t say anything as they eat but looks increasingly uncomfortable with the silence until he gets to the toast, when he makes a sound of appreciation in the back of his throat and, with his mouth full, says in a cheery tone, “Wow, Bones, this is really good. You know, I’ve never heard of pan-fried toast before.”

“That’s how my daddy always made it,” Leonard drawls. “Jim, can we talk about this, please?”

Jim stops everything, puts the toast back down on his plate and sits with one foot tucked up under the other knee and his hands in his lap, waiting.

Leonard begins, “I don’t want to lose my job, Jim.”

“No, no, of course not.”

“This can’t—this can’t happen again.” That practically pains Leonard to say, because he wishes so hard it aches that it could happen again. All the time. Starting as soon as he doesn’t have the hangover of the century.

“I know. Look, Bones—Leonard—” Jim balks, looking panicky and gesturing helplessly in front of himself for a second.

In spite of the fact that he’s been complaining about it for months, something in Leonard’s gut tugs at the thought of Jim dropping that stupid nickname.

“ _Bones_ ,” Jim finally settles. “I want you to know that I never meant for this to happen. All this—it hasn’t been about getting into your pants.”

“I know, Jim,” Leonard says, a little surprised—the thought hadn’t occurred, but it’s comforting to hear him say it.

“And—this should go without saying but I’m gonna say it anyway—this isn’t going to have any effect on the way I treat Joanna.”

“Good,” Leonard says firmly.

“And—and here, look, whatever you need to do from this point on, you do it. Okay? You set the pace from here. I won’t push you. Uh, I’m—I’m gonna go. Gotta get out of these clothes. But, um, Bones, thanks for breakfast, it was really good.” He’s standing now, backing toward the door into the living room. “I’ll see you. Uh—or I won’t. No pressure.”

Leonard wants to call after him but he doesn’t know what he would say, can’t find his voice. He’s not sure how he wants things to progress from here—everything is all muddled up and inexplicably painful. He just listens to the sounds of Jim collecting his things from the living room, and to the creak of the door as it opens and shuts.

He spends the rest of the day curled up on the couch (after, of course, making sure it’s clean and spraying it with Febreze for good measure), waiting out the malaise of the hangover and wallowing. He can’t stop thinking about how nice a picture it was, Jim sitting at his table eating the breakfast he made, how under different circumstances it could have been—

He shoves his face into one of the throw pillows and scolds himself fiercely, but it’s too late. He’s come to a realization and he can’t undo it: somewhere along the line, his attraction to Jim became more than physical.

There’s nothing he’d like more than to get Jim back here for a repeat performance, deliberate this time, and sober, _and_ to have him stay after. He wants to not be alone right now, lying on his couch like the pathetic bastard he is.

But last year, one of the doctors on his floor got caught in a year-long sexual relationship with a patient and he was sent packing. Leonard has a daughter to think of.

 _What he wants_ is never going to happen. He needs to accept that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep forgetting to mention, I actually started writing this story months ago and lost it when my hard drive crashed. I haven't even caught up yet with the original version. Not especially important, but I thought that might be interesting to know. Thank you to everyone for reading and responding to this story!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, y'all! I haven't had much time to write. This chapter got really far away from me and I introduce a lot of things in it that were not originally part of my plan for this story, but that occurred to me spur-of-the-moment as I was writing it. I'm a little concerned about how this is going to affect the rest of everything... We'll see together, I guess!

Leonard has no idea what to do, just knows he has to back off. It’s a real shame; aside from the fact that he wants Jim in his life more than ever, this is gonna mean he can’t see Jim’s friends as much, either. He likes them, he really does, and he felt like he was coming to the point where he could call them his friends, too. The problem is, they were Jim’s people first, and if there’s a barrier between Leonard and Jim, then Spock and Nyota and Pavel and Hikaru are all on Jim’s side of it.

Least he’s got Christine, though it’s only been a few days since that night and she’s getting real sick of his shit already. The good mood that she teased him about months ago is gone, replaced by moping and a quick temper, and she hasn’t said anything but the looks she sends him are increasingly sour.

When he growls a mean, passive-aggressive remark after she has a hard time finding a vein in a patient’s arm, she snaps, “Oh, go to hell, Leonard.”

He sighs, rubs his forehead. “Sorry, Chris.”

“Damn right you’re sorry,” she says, but she sounds much gentler. She doesn’t ask what it is that’s bothering him, but she does other things, like bringing him coffee and taking some of his paperwork off his hands. At the end of the day, she pats him on the shoulder and says, “I hope you get things worked out with your girlfriend,” and Leonard wants to laugh and cry at the same time.

He’s not snappy at Joanna, can’t be. It’s nearly impossible to get actually mad at her; she has to _earn_ that. But he can’t imagine that he’s one-hundred percent the same old Daddy when the mood of his life has made such a drastic turn. Jo wordlessly confirms this by adding more and more comforting sorts of gestures into their daily interactions—when they leave the house she holds his hand pretty constantly without him having to ask, and she hugs or kisses him quite a lot, most of the time completely out of the blue. Sometimes he’ll ask why and she’ll just shrug and say, “’Cause you’re my daddy,” or something along those lines, overly casual, and then she’ll smile real wide and that’ll be the end of it. He didn’t know it was possible for a five-year-old to have such guile, but that’s his little girl, apparently.

Well, he figures he better enjoy the affection while she’s giving it out, before she hits puberty and starts hating his guts.

Another unfortunate effect of his drunken night with Jim is that, despite all the discipline he’s usually got when he’s sober, it seems he’s now absolutely incapable of not imagining Jim when he needs _alone time_. And he needs alone time more than ever now that he’s had a taste of sex with James Kirk. It’s like opening the damn floodgates, the ones that shut up tight the moment he walked in on Jocelyn with another man. He feels like a damn teenager again, honestly, feels like whenever he’s got a moment free his dick’s got an idea of what he could do with it. And now instead of whatever faceless man or woman he’s been forcing himself to picture _instead_ of Jim since he first laid eyes on him, it’s just Jim and his perfect face and the feel of his skin, and the sound of his moans, which a despondent Leonard realizes he can’t forget now that he’s heard them.

All that aside, Leonard spends a lot of time rereading the text messages he and Jim have sent each other over the past few months. At lunch, in the on call room when he should be catching a quick nap, after he’s put Joanna to bed. Jim has kept true to his word and hasn’t pushed, hasn’t made any attempt at all to contact him except for the occasional email he’s sent out to all the parents of his students. He hasn’t even needed to come in to the hospital.

It hasn’t even been two weeks but it feels like months, months stuck drifting out at sea on a piece of driftwood where he once had a boat.

God help him, he misses that damn boat.

Jim told him to set the pace but he doesn’t have a clue what to do. He knows what he _should_ do, but his resolve is crumbling, crumbles a little more every time he sees _Bones_ on the screen. He can hear that dumbass nickname in Jim’s voice in his head: _Bones, Bones, Bones—c’mon, Bones, it’ll be fun_. _That was awesome, Bones, Bones, you’re doin’ good, Bones._ And the breathy way it came out that night on the couch—well. That’s a thought Leonard is really trying not to entertain.

One afternoon, without really planning to do it, he finally breaks and ends the silence. It’s his day off, he’s not due to get Jo from school for another two hours, and he’s been reading Jim’s texts for the past few minutes instead of brewing the coffee he came into the kitchen for in the first place.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**2:15 P.M.**   
**What does the T stand for?**

He presses SEND before he loses his nerve and quickly shuts off the screen, setting his phone down on the kitchen counter and waiting for the response with equal amounts of anticipation and dread. He feels like an idiot, or like a preteen girl waiting for a call from her crush, and so he tries to calm down and think about something else. When his phone buzzes a few minutes later, he jumps, and the screen is on and unlocked before he really realizes what he’s doing.

**From: James T Kirk**   
**2:20 P.M.**   
**Oh, no no no. You don’t just give up an embarrassing middle name that easily, Bones. Just on principle.**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**2:21 P.M.**   
**Oh, I’m familiar with that rule, Jim, believe me. Tell you what, I’ll go first.**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**2:21 P.M.**   
**Horatio.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**2:22 P.M.**   
**Wow. Horatio. That is a doozy.**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**2:23 P.M.**   
**Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**2:24 P.M.**   
**Okay, well, since you’ve earned it, it’s Tiberius.**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**2:25 P.M.**   
**That is impressive. That is one hell of a middle name there, Jim.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**2:25 P.M.**   
**Oh, shut up, Horatio.**

Leonard snickers, and the weight that’s been sinking him down all week finally lightens. For the moment, he’s content ignoring all the things that should be filling him with gut-wrenching dread—it feels too good to have Jim back in his life. He’ll fret about everything else later, with all the manic dedication that comes with being practically a professional worrywart, but right now he can’t bring himself to give a shit about any of it at all.

\----

As expected, Leonard does worry.

Not only that, he _hurts_. Being friends is better than being nothing at all, but damn if it doesn’t still suck.

He’s concerned about his future at the hospital, he’s worried he won’t be able to control himself. But even if he does—it really doesn’t matter what happens from here on out, whether he and Jim both do everything exactly right or not, if anyone finds out about what has _already_ happened between them, that night that Leonard just can’t take back, he could lose his job. Maybe he’ll find another one, maybe he won’t. He doesn’t have a whole lot of money saved up, not after the divorce—legal fees and alimony and child support drained most of his savings.

Then again, this isn’t the only secret he has that could ruin him, nor is it the biggest. But only his mother and Jocelyn know how his father really died, and he doesn’t think either of them will say anything at this point. It took a long time for his mother to come to terms with it, for her to be able to really look at him again, and it’s still not back to the way it was, no matter how much they both like to pretend. She doesn’t understand completely, but she understands enough. Plus, he thinks she’s tired of the whole thing and wants it behind her—even on the days where he’s feelings insecure and is absolutely sure his mother must hate him, must not be able to _stand_ him or what he did, at least he’s just as sure she won’t do anything to drag the episode out any longer.  

He’s still a bit worried about Jocelyn outing him, but hey—she skipped out of town and left their daughter in his care. That complicates the situation enough that if she ever does come back, he’s pretty confident his secret will be safe.

The more pressing issue is whether or not he’ll be able to keep his hands off of Jim, honestly.

Not long after he reopens contact with Jim, Nyota gets ahold of his phone number and calls to invite him over to hers for dinner on Friday. The usual crowd is invited, maybe a few others, she says, but it’s just dinner, a low-key kind of thing.

This feels oddly intimate—moving the relationship he has with Jim and his people into new territory. Like he’s one of them. He hasn’t even seen any of them in person since—that night. But he agrees, gets his sister to babysit for a couple of hours.

He arrives at Nyota and Spock’s frankly very beautiful apartment a bit late and when Nyota opens the door in an elegant berry-red dress, he can see that there are already a couple people there, hanging out in the warmly-lit living room with wine. _‘Low key,’_ he scoffs internally, glad he put on something nice before leaving the house.

“Leonard! Thanks for coming,” she says, smiling brilliantly at him and pulling him into a quick hug, which he returns with a quick peck to the cheek.

“Sure. Um. Here, I brought this—my mama refused to let me come over here without a gift of some kind, so—” He holds out a small basket. “She gave me these to bring you. Couple jars of Mama McCoy’s homemade jam.”

“Oh, thank you!” she says, lighting up and taking the basket into her small hands. “Come on in.” As they walk deeper into the apartment, she heads into the kitchen, calling after him, “Dinner’s not quite done, but there’s wine in the living room. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Leonard!” the perpetually excited Pavel cries when he walks into the room, “Would you like some wine?” Though he’s been in the States since he was a kid, he still retains some of his native Russian accent and it comes out sounding like _vould you like some vine?_ Without waiting for an answer, he grabs an empty glass and pours a hefty amount of, judging by the label, Shiraz.

“Thanks,” Leonard says, accepting it as he sits down on the other side of the couch.

“Leonard,” Spock pipes up, “this is Carol Marcus. Carol is a former colleague of mine from the university and is something of an expert in advanced weaponry, but she recently completed her degree in elementary education and is teaching fifth grade at Oakwood.” His tone indicates that he’s puzzled about that particular decision but has learned not to question it.

“I still help with the research and teach classes over the summer,” she protests. Leonard is surprised to hear that she has a prim English accent.

“Leonard McCoy,” he says, stretching his arm out for a handshake. Carol’s the same kind of supernaturally attractive as Jim—soft, blonde hair; one blue eye and one green; perfectly constructed features; straight, white teeth. If he wasn’t quite so far gone for Jim he’d definitely be interested.

“Leonard is a doctor, and his daughter is one of Jim’s students.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Leonard,” she says, shaking his hand with a strong grip before letting go and shifting her own wine glass back into her right hand. She smiles at him, and if he’s not mistaken it’s a flirtatious gesture.

“Nice to meet you, too, Carol.”

Hell, maybe he should go for it, he thinks tiredly. It’s been a long time since he was actually with Jocelyn in any meaningful capacity, and it’s not like he’s dating Jim. In fact, he has decided very adamantly to not ever date Jim. He’d be an idiot not to take the first opportunity at a non-forbidden relationship since the divorce when the woman in question is as gorgeous and intelligent as Carol Marcus.

The thought of dating Carol doesn’t thrill him, though, in fact makes him ache a little bit. Nothing against her—honestly, if he’d never met Jim he’s sure he’d be turning on the charm right now.

In short, Jim is ruining his life. Leonard sighs a little as conversation resumes around him and takes a sip.

He won’t rule it out, he decides. Not yet.

A series of enthusiastic knocks erupts from the front door and the new arrival comes in without waiting for anyone to answer. Leonard turns to see Jim enter, his face lit up with breathless excitement as he shoulders off his jacket. Jim turns his head to take in the scene, meets Leonard’s eyes, and his expression changes. He takes on a soft smile, shy but genuine. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since Jim walked out of his apartment about four weeks ago. Leonard smiles back but it’s really only an insecure press of the lips as he takes in the sight of Jim’s face and his stomach flops around in his abdomen.

Nyota comes out of the kitchen then and Jim wraps her in a hug, kissing her cheek much more soundly than Leonard did.

“Smells good, Uhura.”

“Thanks, Jim,” she tells him. “But it’s not quite done.”

“Need any help?”

“Absolutely not.” She uses the dishtowel she’s carrying to smack him softly on the arm and commands, “Get into the living room and socialize. I’m sure that’ll be a real hardship for you.”

“Alright, I’m going.” He strides into the living room and claps Leonard on the shoulder on his way to an armchair nearby. “Hey, Bones!”

“Hey, Jim,” Leonard says, feeling the emptiness of the seat next to him like a physical entity. Pavel cheerfully pours another glass of wine and reaches over Leonard to pass it to Jim.

“Thank you, Mr. Chekov,” Jim says brightly, immediately taking a sip. He notices Carol then and grins up at her.  “Carol Marcus! Good to see you again.”

“You as well, Jim,” she replies, tipping her glass at him. She moves then to take the seat next to Leonard, leaning back into the cushions and crossing her legs. Leonard continues to feel hyper-aware of the spot next to him, but no longer for its emptiness. He tries not to act weird or to look at her legs or to make it look like he’s trying to avoid looking at her legs. He can’t tell if he can actually detect her body heat or if he’s just imagining it.

Jesus, what the hell is _with_ him? He’s a doctor. He’s had his hands _inside people he barely knows_ ; he should not be having so much trouble at a goddamn dinner party.

A few minutes of casual conversation later (where “casual conversation” means trying to keep up as Pavel tries to explain his latest project), during which Hikaru, a woman named Gaila with a full head of red curls, and a man named Montgomery Scott (“Scott, or Scotty is just fine, lad,” he insists with a thick accent from—you guessed it—Scotland) join them, Nyota is calling people to the kitchen to help her set the food on the table.

The dinner is really great—lots of trendy stuff like brussels sprouts with pomegranate seeds and a mushroom risotto, since Spock is a vegetarian, but there’s also some plain old-fashioned comfort food—Leonard loads his plate with sweet potatoes, green beans, and corn bread before filling the remaining corner with a bit of everything else. Jim makes fun of him for it, of course, and Leonard grouses good-naturedly about somehow being the only good old southern boy there—aren’t they in Georgia, for God’s sake?

Nyota smiles affectionately over at them and Leonard feels warm, like a little boy again, getting praised by his mama.

All in all, though, the whole thing is woefully awkward from Leonard’s point of view. Carol’s sat next to him again and Jim is across from him. Carol is making conversation, and Jim is inserting himself into that conversation and obstinately refusing to let go in spite of the fact that she’s really only addressing Leonard, who, for his part, pretends not to notice and talks to the both of them blithely. Carol doesn’t seem too broken up about it; she’s relaxed and she responds nicely to Jim, just doesn’t continue beyond what’s necessary, and when she has something new to say she says it to Leonard. It’s all very subtle and they’re not causing any tension among the party— _Leonard’s_ practically sweating through his nice shirt, but he’s pretty sure he’s the only one.

Nyota calls everyone’s attention and Leonard takes the opportunity to take a large gulp of wine.

She takes hold of Spock’s hand, smiles beatifically at everyone. “I want to thank all of you again for coming. Spock and I actually invited everyone here tonight to make an announcement.”

Leonard is not surprised when she tells them that she’s pregnant (she hasn’t had a drop to drink all night and she’s even more radiant than usual), but he _is_ ecstatic. Despite his reservations about getting attached to these people, he finds himself incredibly fond of Nyota and hell, even Spock a little bit. They certainly seem like a very happy couple and they somehow work really well together. That, and Leonard just likes kids. He’s never totally sure how to deal with adults outside of a professional capacity; interacting with kids just comes easier to him. He likes knowing there’s another one coming into this world, likes knowing that it’ll be Nyota and Spock taking care of the little thing.

Everyone is ecstatic, really. There’s suddenly a lot of excited chattering around the table. Gaila, seated on Nyota’s other side, throws her arms around her in a tight hug and they’re giggling like little girls. Jim leans back in his chair so he can reach behind Pavel and clap Spock, who looks more serene and pleased than Leonard’s ever seen him, on the shoulder, congratulating him in a crowing voice.

Carol lets out a dreamy sigh and says, “Kids are great, aren’t they? I’m so happy for them.”

“Yeah, me too. They deserve it.”

“Well, if you’re not all too stuffed,” Nyota calls over the din with Gaila’s arms still circling her waist, positively beaming, “there’s some dessert.”

The answer is a general affirmative, and Leonard, having been trained from birth to be a gentleman at all times, hops out of his chair as soon as he sees Nyota begin to stand. “You stay right where you are,” he says, pointing meaningfully at her.

“Yeah, we got this, Uhura,” Jim assures her.

“Thanks, guys.”

There are dessert plates already stacked on the counter near the sink, so Hikaru and Pavel bring those out while Scotty and Spock collect the plates and the leftovers on the table. Leonard and Jim are tasked with collecting the actual desserts—cheesecake decorated with fresh fruit, a lemon meringue pie that makes Leonard’s mouth water, some kind of Middle Eastern pastry, cupcakes, little cannoli, _and_ rice pudding—Leonard is seriously impressed. While they gather the desserts together—“only wimps need to take more than one trip, Bones,” Jim says gravely, trying to balance three plates on his arms, and secretly Leonard agrees—Jim keeps stealing little glances at him. Neither of them says anything about it, but Leonard’s insides feel twisted up in some serious knots and he can’t tell if it’s in a good or bad way. Probably both. He’s probably going to keel over before the night is done from the stress.

“Thank you, boys,” Nyota coos when they bring out the array of treats and start setting them out on the table. “Why doesn’t everyone grab what they want, and let’s move this into the living room? We’ve got another bottle of wine or two.”

Already stuffed from dinner, Leonard tries a little bit of each dessert. He takes two of the pastries, which turn out to just be pistachio baklava, but Jim grabs one off of his plate.

“ _Damn it_ , Jim, there’s a whole tray in the dining room.”

Jim just grins with his mouth full and breezes across the room to talk to Gaila and Scotty. Leonard grumbles and shoves the remaining little baklava square into his mouth.

He sticks with the one glass of wine, both because he has to go get Joanna soon and because he’s wary of drinking too much in Jim’s presence. He passes the next couple of hours after dinner on the couch with Pavel and Carol, talking about their careers, their favorite TV shows, that kind of thing. Pavel regales them with stories about Russia for a good while and his enthusiastic delivery is so funny that they end up laughing the whole time, which only encourages him. Every once in a while Carol will do something flirtatious—set her hand briefly on his shoulder or smile coyly at him or meet his eyes while Pavel is talking—and he’s torn between responding in kind or just ignoring it. It doesn’t feel _right_ to flirt back but what, is he going to be alone forever because he’s pining over Jim? In the end he is too paralyzed by indecision to do much but smile weakly back at her.

Around ten o’clock, he says to the both of them, “Looks like I gotta get going,” puts his hands on his knees, and levers himself up off the couch. He feels stressed and miserable and there was honestly no way he was going to walk out of here without feeling disgusted with himself for _some_ reason or another, with this whole Carol and Jim thing.

“Nyota,” he says, pulling her towards him with one hand on her back into a quick hug. “I have to go get Jo from my sister’s. Thanks for inviting me; dinner was great. And congratulations. You’re gonna be a great mom.”

She preens and smacks a kiss on his cheek. “Thank _you_ for coming. I can’t wait to try your mom’s jam.”

“’ _Award-winning_ ,’” he enunciates, rolling his eyes. “I love my mother but do not get that woman talking about jam. Hey, now that you have my number, let me know if you need anything, alright?”

“Sure,” she says. “It was good to see you. Have a good night, Leonard.”

Leonard pats Spock on the shoulder and congratulates him as well, and then he offers a goodbye in general to everybody still gathered around. He meets Jim’s eyes across the room after the chorus of farewells dies down, and the corner of his mouth quirks up and he waves. Jim waves back, his own mouth curved into an open smile. The way he’s looking at Leonard would seem kind of intense if not for the warm glowing atmosphere of the room that softens everything, makes it all so much more intimate and surreal.

He’s out in the driveway, headed to his car when the front door opens again. He turns around, thinking for a moment it’s Jim, it must be, but it’s Carol calling his name and stepping out into the cold after him.

It’s—disappointing. He feels like a real prick about it, but it’s true.

“You left your phone on the couch,” she says as she reaches him, holding it out. He has the sudden crazy thought that maybe she’s done what Jim did, months ago, put her number into his phone when he wasn’t looking. But he’s since put a password in place, and she isn’t Jim.

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Not a problem. Look, Leonard—would you like to go to dinner sometime?”

Leonard sighs. He wishes he wanted to say yes. She’s beautiful and smart as hell and he really thinks he’d have enjoyed her company tonight had he not been such a damn basket case.

But it doesn’t feel right. He’s not interested and he can’t make himself be interested. And he knows it’s all Jim Kirk’s fault.

“I—can’t,” he says, and it’s a fucking lame answer but he barely understands his own problem so it’s not like he can be expected to explain it to someone else.

Oddly enough, she doesn’t look upset. She just raises her eyebrows and says, “Hung up on someone else?”

He doesn’t say anything but the look on his face—a cross between guilt and total mortification—says it all for him, he guesses.

“I suspected as much, but it was worth a shot,” she says airily, and then her expression turns wicked. “There was quite enough tension between the two of you. You and Jim would make a really cute couple, you know.”

“I—I can’t with him either, Carol, he’s my patient,” he hisses, swiveling his head to make sure they’re alone.

“That’s a shame,” she murmurs. “Here, give me your phone back and I’ll give you my number. Not like that,” she adds as the dubious look on his face. “You’re fun to talk to. I’d like to be friends. And just in case you’d like to talk about your impossible forbidden romance—”

“Oh, shut up,” he grumbles, feeling his face heat up as he unlocks the screen and practically shoves the phone at her.

“It was very nice to meet you Leonard,” she says a minute later, handing it back with her number programmed in.

“You too, Carol,” he replies, finding that he means it very much.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH I'M SORRY. I know it's hard to get back into a story that hasn't updated in a while, so here's a brief chapter-by-chapter summary:
> 
> 1-Leonard is attracted to his new patient, Jim. Jocelyn leaves Joanna in Leonard's care and skips town. Leonard finds out Jim is Jo's new kindergarten teacher.  
> 2-Frequent hospital visits and running into each other at the bar bring Jim and Leonard closer.  
> 3-Leonard meets Nyota, Spock, Chekov, and Sulu. Leonard and Jim's friendship becomes official, and Leonard takes on the difficult task of braiding his little girl's hair.  
> 4-After a night at the bar, Jim and Leonard go back to Leonard's place and have drunken sex on the couch. The next morning over breakfast, Leonard tells Jim they can't let it happen again. Later, Leonard realizes how deep his feelings for Jim really are.  
> 5-Leonard doesn't know quite how to act with Jim and his friends after that night, but gets into a routine soon enough. Nyota and Spock host a dinner party where we meet Carol, Scotty, and Gaila, and learn that Nyota is pregnant. Carol asks Leonard to dinner and when he declines, she realizes he's in love with Jim and asks to exchange phone numbers in case he needs someone to talk to.
> 
> Okay I hope that refreshes your memories and that you guys still want to stick around! I'm thinking one or two more chapter out of this one.

Jim texts him a couple days later.

**From: James T Kirk**   
**6:41 P.M.**   
**Hey Bones, what’s up with you and Carol? You two definitely seemed like you were hitting it off at Uhura’s and then she followed you out. Do we have occasion to celebrate?**

Leonard reads and rereads the message over and over, and spends a lot of time after that agonizing over how to reply, typing and deleting and typing again. Jim seems to be really okay with the idea of Leonard with someone else even though it would probably crush _him_ into a million pieces if the situation was reversed, to see Jim with Carol—no, he doesn’t want to think about it. Leonard finds himself wondering what the hell he means to Jim, what that night was, how they’re supposed to be addressing the issue with each other. Is Jim just going to pretend it didn’t happen—something they’ll never speak of again—or is it just a non-issue, a night of tension-relieving that’s now going to give way to bigger and better things for each of them?

How much does Leonard reveal about his interactions the other night with Carol? If only he could figure out how Jim was trying to play this then maybe he’d have some idea of what the hell to say.

Finally he settles on a response.

**To: James T Kirk**   
**7:08 P.M.**   
**No Jim, there’s nothing going on with me and Carol. She came out to bring me my phone and she did ask me out to dinner but I said no.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**7:10 P.M.**   
**Aw, man, any reason why not? Or don’t you want to talk about it?**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**7:15 P.M.**   
**I just don’t think I’m in the right place to be dating right now, I guess.**

This is not the first time Leonard has given this excuse to Jim, said, _it’s just not the right time_ or whatever, and every time he says it Jim’s mouth purses into a thin line for a few seconds and he doesn’t really say anything outright, just makes a noncommittal noise and offers some vague sentiment about waiting until it’s right or hoping Leonard finds someone to make him happy soon. Leonard knows that Jim wants to call him out on his bullshit, and bullshit it is. It’s just not the right time for him to date anybody but _Jim_.

It makes Leonard feel like a pathetic sack of cow shit, but it’s true.

Thankfully, Jim has so far opted for the tactful route and has refrained from demanding to know what the hell his problem _actually_ is, and as Leonard feels his phone buzz with a new text, he can see that that’s going to continue for the time being.

**From: James T Kirk**   
**7:17 P.M.**   
**Oh, well, it kinda sucks that you let someone as hot as Carol Marcus get away, but if it’s not right, it’s not right.**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**7:18 P.M.**   
**Yeah. Thanks, Jim.**

The conversation has left him feeling sad and drained, so he leaves his room and finds Joanna sitting on the floor in the living room with a coloring book.

“Hey, sweet girl,” he says.

Her head whips up toward him and she grins toothily a second later, stilling the hand she’s using to color Big Bird purple. “Hi, Daddy.”

“You feel like doing something with your old dad tonight?” he asks, easing down onto the floor next to her as she resumes her task. “I’ll order a pizza for dinner. We could watch a movie, maybe, or you could read me one of your new books?”

“Yay, pizza!” she cries, dropping the crayon for good as she launches herself at him in a hug. He pretends to fall over from the force of the tackle, making exaggerated noises of pain and defeat, and she giggles in fiendish delight, climbing on top of him and declaring her victory.

“Alright, you demon child, let me up so I can call for pizza. You want just cheese?”

Joanna reads him one of the picture books they bought recently while they wait for the pizza, and he finds it really hard to pay attention to the actual story when he’s just so proud that she’s actually reading. They finish it just as their dinner arrives and Leonard sets up a little nest of pillows on the floor where they eat and watch The Princess and the Frog. It’s quickly becoming Jo’s new favorite, but tonight she’s having a hard time staying awake.

“Okay, honey, let’s get you to bed,” Leonard whispers after she’s fallen asleep against the pillows, scooping her up. She stirs and opens her eyes before pressing her face into his shoulder.

As he’s tucking her in, she reaches out for him wordlessly and, bemused, he leans down. She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him further down so he’s bent awkwardly at the middle and close enough for her to kiss him on the nose.

“Love you, Daddy, goodnight,” she murmurs, already drifting off again.

Yeah, Leonard feels much better.

He resolutely avoids checking his phone again or looking at the texts he and Jim have sent each other for the rest of the night.

 ----

Outside of the bubble of contentedness and intimacy of Nyota and Spock’s apartment, where he’d essentially felt like part of the gang, Leonard finds himself falling back into that strange space between strangers and friends with all of them. Jim, of course, he still considers his friend—his _best_ friend, really, but that’s stunningly easy to accomplish with Leonard’s sad social life. With Nyota, he doesn’t feel like he has a choice—she calls him, invites him to lunch, even visits him at the hospital on occasion. He’s not her doctor, but she asks him for pregnancy advice sometimes anyway, and he’s about ninety percent sure she already knows all the answers and is just trying to engage him or something.

Meddlesome kindergarten teachers.

He does end up sending Carol a text, which she takes as permission to make Leonard her new friend. Somehow, she even seems to have maneuvered him into the role of gay best friend—she’s apparently secure enough in the idea that he has a deep, eternal love for Jim that she no longer considers him a sexual or romantic prospect. He doesn’t take exception to this because, while he is actually bisexual, from Carol’s perspective he might as well be gay for as much interest as he ultimately has in her (in anyone but Jim, really). So, while the whole thing is really strange, he doesn’t really mind when she stops by to eat lunch with him when he’s working weekends and wants to talk about how things are going with Jim (even though nothing changes on that front and he insists there’s actually nothing there and never will be), or texts him to talk about her own love life or ask advice.

It _is_ nice, he supposes grudgingly, to have people to talk to who he _doesn’t_ have sexual and romantic feelings for. Occasionally he even finds himself venting his own frustrations, usually on the nights Carol invites herself over with a bottle of wine when she knows he won’t have Joanna, and she nods and listens sympathetically and tells him she hopes everything works out. It certainly feels better than wallowing.

But overall, this whole situation is not treating him well. He falls into moods, melancholy and brooding sorts of moods. He overcompensates when he’s with patients, afraid he’ll snap at one of them, and tries to become bright and cheerful where he’s normally focused and stern, even slightly abrasive. He’s told he’s not quite pulling it off.

When he’s not with patients he’s just gloomy. Christine sighs heavily every so often, watching him with furrowed eyebrows. She’s clearly worried, but she doesn’t bring it up.

“Okay, don’t think I didn’t notice that you picked at your lunch yesterday,” she’ll say, sitting across from him in the cafeteria and dumping a tray of food in front of him despite his protests that he brought his own lunch (“Please, Leonard, you made yourself a peanut butter sandwich and put some crumbled up potato chips in a bag,” and they both know that that shitty excuse for a lunch is even _more_ cause for concern, since he’s usually so conscious about what he eats).

He accepts invitations to hang out less and less, because it’s not like he’s going to be any fun, and because he feels weirdly _outside_ of the group.

His mother, who is babysitting considerably less often, notices and starts to come over more than she used to. “I’m worried about you, honey,” she says quietly while she and Leonard sit in the kitchen one night. Joanna’s in her room playing some kind of make-believe and they can hear her putting on different voices and making sound effects.

“What? Why?”

She gives him a look, reaches over to pat his hand. “You’ve been through a lot, Len. With what happened with—with your father, and with Jocelyn… taking care of Joanna like you’ve been doing. I’ve always been worried about you, but I thought you were doing better lately. You had friends, you were opening up.”

“I still have friends, Ma,” he scoffs sullenly, refusing to meet her eyes.

“I can tell when someone’s—withdrawing, is all,” she says, “and while I’m sure Jo appreciates the extra time with her daddy, I bet she also wants to see him happy. Haven’t you thought about dating again?”

He just groans and puts his head in his hands.

“Oh. I see. You want to tell me about her? Or,” she adds, faltering a little as she remembers his preferences, “or him?”

“ _No_ , Mama, I don’t want to tell you about him. Can we _please_ talk about something else? Something more pleasant, maybe, like intestinal obstruction or the genocide in Darfur?”

“So dramatic,” she scolds. “I just want you to be happy. You’re my little boy, can’t I take an interest in your life?”

He doesn’t say anything, so she wisely switches topics and tells him all about her friend Virginia’s wedding.

One day in mid-May, he’s moping in the kitchen, looking out the window with his head propped up on his hand, looking like a proper lovesick idiot, and Joanna catches him. Normally, Leonard can hear her coming from a mile away and would never allow her to see him like this, but for whatever reason she’s just moving quieter today and he doesn’t notice her until she speaks up.

“Hi Daddy,” she says, loud and pointed, and he starts.

“Hey there, baby girl. You done playing with your dolls?” He tries to look innocent and normal and she smiles at him, overly sweet—somehow he reads warning in it, like she wants him to know that she saw his sulking and is filing it away for another time.

Either he’s going crazy or she’s too smart for her own good.

“Yep.”

“Well, kiddo,” he says, reaching his arms out to her and lifting her up into his lap when she comes closer, his voice thinning from the strain, “we got the whole weekend to ourselves. The possibilities are endless. What do you want to do?”

She snuggles into his side and exhales gently. “Can we go to the moon?” she asks.

Leonard huffs a laugh, pressing his face into the hair on the crown of her head. “Smart aleck. I can’t take you to the moon, but there is a planetarium one town over. How’s that sound?”

She heaves a put-upon sigh and tells him, “I _guess_ that’s okay.”

Happy to have dodged a bullet for the time being, he sends her off to get ready. He remains at the counter for a little while, listening carefully to the sounds of his daughter puttering around, and forcefully packs all the pain lingering in his stomach into a little compartment where, he hopes, it can’t get out. Not until later, when he’s put Joanna to bed and can wallow to his heart’s content without her knowledge.

He’s about to get up to put his shoes on when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:08 P.M.**   
**Hey man, bar tonight?**

**To: James T Kirk**   
**12:08 P.M.**   
**Sorry, Jim, I’m spending the weekend with Jo.**

**From: James T Kirk**   
**12:09 P.M.**   
**Rats. Okay, maybe next time? Have fun.**

He wants to text back, make fun of the way Jim’s job as a kindergarten teacher means his curses have turned into words like _rats_. But he doesn’t, just slips his phone back into his pocket and drives himself and his daughter to the planetarium the next town over.

The planetarium actually turns out to be a terrible idea. Jo loves it, but Leonard doesn’t fare so well. He just sits in the dark looking up at the projected stars, remembering the way Jim spoke about them that night, hushed and awed, the way his lips formed around the words as they tumbled out of his mouth before Leonard was finally kissing them.

 ----

He doesn’t have to wait long for Joanna to act on what she’s seen. On Monday, when he arrives at the school to pick her up, she comes bounding out of the doors holding a big piece of soft paper, the kind she always brings her drawings home on. The back of the drawing is facing him, and he can see her name written on the back in her deliberate but unskilled handwriting.

She opens the back door of the car and gets in, scooting over so she’s sitting behind him and wrinkling the paper a little in the process.

“Hi, Daddy!”

“Hey, honey, whatcha got there?”

“It’s a drawing, Daddy,” Jo tells him. “It’s for you!”

“Well, lemme see it, then,” he says, even as she leans forward between the seats and presents it to him.

A lump forms in his throat, almost as painful as the time he nearly choked on a peach pit as a kid. In the drawing, there’s a tiny, scribbly version of him labeled both “Daddy” and “You,” and a tinier Joanna labeled, “Me” and “Joanna McCoy.” Both of them have big clumsy smiles and dots for eyes, and it looks like they’re holding hands. Written above it in big letters is, “I love you Daddy! Don’t be sad!” And there’s just no way she wrote that by herself—she’s smart but she’s just learning how to read and write (she’s learned how to write her own name recently enough that she’s still writing it in its entirety on everything even when she doesn’t need to), and he doesn’t see Jim teaching contractions to an entire class of kindergarteners. That means Jim helped her with this, which means he _saw_ —

Humiliation settles hot and dark in his belly.

“It’s beautiful, baby girl,” he says gruffly. “Thank you.”

They pull out of the drive and head for home while she tells him about her day, whining as she frequently does about being forced to participate naptime most of the way home. The picture goes up on the fridge and Leonard pauses to leave a tender kiss in her hair as he gets up to clear the dishes after dinner.

When he tucks her into bed, he lingers, kneeling at her side. She looks back up at him serenely.

“What is it, Daddy?”

“Just thinkin’ about that picture you made me,” he murmurs, brushing the bangs off her forehead. “That was real nice. Were you worried about me?”

“A little.”

“Well, I’m sorry I made you worry. I’ll try not to be so sad anymore.”

She’s getting sleepier; her face breaks into a closed grin but her eyelids are drooping.

“After all,” he continues, “I got my darlin’ Joanna. What do I have to be sad about?”

She hums happily, letting her eyes slide shut. “Love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, honey. Sleep tight.”

 ----

Carol comes over for lunch on one of his days off—her kids are currently in P.E., so she has an hour free. She brings him a sandwich from the café-deli that splits the distance between his house and the school and he groans appreciatively around a mouthful of rye and corned beef and bacon.

He promptly chokes on it when she says, “So, I still don’t understand the situation between you and Jim.”

Once his airway is clear again, he glares as venomously as he can muster at her, but she just smiles back in a way that he _would_ call innocent and amiable if he didn’t know better.

“That’s because there _is_ no ‘situation.’”

“Well—you had sex, right?” she prompts, and Leonard sighs because he _knows_ she knows the answer to that, and to the next seventy questions she’s probably going to ask, because she _keeps asking them_.

“Yeah, Carol, we did.”

“And you’ve been seeing less of each other since then.”

“Yes. He told me to call the shots and I just—need space. Indefinitely. Probably forever.” He’s aware that his voice has become increasingly snarly but can’t really stop it.

“But you love him.”

He purses his lips, staring down at his hands on the table. It takes him several seconds to answer, but finally he grinds out, “Yeah.”

“Does he feel the same way?”

“Wh—of _course_ not, Carol,” he sputters, but even as he says it, he realizes that he doesn’t really _know_ that, not for sure. But there’s no way Jim feels that way about him.

She must pick up on the hesitance because she asks him lightly, “Well, how do you know?” When he doesn’t answer, she presses, “What did he say when you talked after the sex? Apart from telling you to ‘call the shots’?”

“I don’t—”

“ _Leonard_ ,” she says, “does he even know how you feel?”

“Well, I didn’t _tell_ him,” Leonard snaps, sullen like he’s a teenager getting lectured by his mother.

“What _did_ you say to him, then?”

“I told him it couldn’t happen again! What else is there to say?” he cries.

“That you _love_ him,” she tells him with exaggerated patience. “We’ve just been over that.”

Leonard just feels tired at that. He sinks down toward the tabletop and hangs his head. “What would be the point, Carol? I tell him and then what? We can’t—It’s bad enough anything happened between us at all.”

She takes a few moments to look at him, her lips set in a line and brows furrowed. “Alright, Leonard,” she says quietly. It sounds like a lie, but for the moment she does let the subject drop. She fills the time until she has to go back to work asking him about Jo and telling him stories about her class between bites of her sandwich, and when she leaves, she pecks him on the cheek, almost curtly. He’s reminded again of his mother and the tough-love approach she favored when he was a kid—still does, actually.

“See you this weekend, Leonard,” Carol says breezily before turning to walk to her car.

Leonard stands in the doorway for a minute before scrubbing a hand through his hair and sighing aggressively.

He has no idea what goes through that woman’s head sometimes.

 ----

It’s not too long after that day when Leonard is sitting at his desk in the evening, checking his email after he’s put Jo to bed, and sees that the hospital has sent him an email. He can tell from the subject line that it’s one of those that gets sent when there’s some kind of administrative change, but it gets truncated in his inbox so he can’t tell what it’s about. So he opens it up and as his eyes scan the content, his stomach drops.

_One of your patients has requested to be switched to another Primary Care Physician_ , it says. It’s not like this is the very first time this has happened to him, but it’s not something that happens _often_ , either, and it leaves him feeling—inadequate, embarrassed, guilty. He’s not sure what he’s done wrong but it must have been something.

He scrolls down a little and the patient’s name comes into view, and that sinking feeling turns into a swift kick in the gut. Or like—like the hard swing of a wrecking ball. If he didn’t know better he’d say his ribs are broken.

_Kirk, James T._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so excited to finally get this chapter out I didn't really proofread it so I hope it's not awful.


End file.
